


...And Even the Wind Will Not Blow Me Down

by Eadgyth



Series: Of Wardens, Champions, and Inquisitors [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Pregnacy Complication, Sexual Content, Unplanned Pregnancy, Varric Tethras book mentions, mostly in pacing between Origins and Awakening, some canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:51:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 27
Words: 52,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eadgyth/pseuds/Eadgyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm still learning what love is,<br/>Every time you look at me that way.<br/>I'm still trying to figure out just how,<br/>You can still look at me the same.<br/>--Guess It May--  Rosie Thomas</p><p>Aoife Cousland survived the Fifth Blight, but now there is life where there should be none and she wonders if she can survive what comes next.<br/>Alistair Theirin thought he had done the right thing, he let go of the one thing he loved most, but no told him how much that would hurt.<br/>What happens when the secrets that they've been keeping finally spill out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreward

Pulled this out of my snippet _Diversions_ work because it was getting long and becoming a more fleshed out story.

This is a speculation and not in line with cannon though I do try to keep it in line with lore. Wanted to explore why my character might be willing to convince Alistair to do the Dark Ritual with Morrigan if he were to throw her over after the Landsmeet. Though I typically max out my coercion, I feel that the whole break-up conversation would be such a sucker-punch that she would be completely taken by surprise. So much so that she would fail to do more that stare blankly at Alistair and thus not even think to employ that silver tongue of hers.

Mostly I am working on getting the emotions of this right, without the characters coming off as pathetic while still staying true those sometimes stupid snap decisions you make when you are between 18-25. Yeah, as the PC you save the world but unless you are rolling an older character, you are most likely in the 18-25 range. With that in mind, I am trying to write this from the story style seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sure Buffy can kick ass and save the world, but she's still got a lot of growing up to do.

If you like the piece, please comment. It would help to know what people liked or didn't like if you can be constructive with the comment. Kudos are ego boosting, but they don't help you become a better writer. I also struggle with catching my spelling and grammatical errors, please if you notice something  please feel free to let me know and be aware that this work with update on a semi-regular basis as I go through my own stages of editing. I am also looking for beta readers to help with this process, so anyone interested in that please let me know as well.


	2. Foreward

And the day had started with such bittersweet promise...

_“Are you going to tell him?” Wynne’s blue eyes were crinkled at the corners and heavily lidded with concern._

_Aoife sighed as she tugged on the belt that held her_ mailed _tabard down. Since the Landsmeet was later that afternoon, she no longer felt the need to skulk around Denerim in more anonymous leathers. She continued adjusting the straps of the armor she had retrieved from the Warden’s storehouse as she thought about how to answer Wynne’s question. Part of her was still trying to figure out how she had gotten herself into this particular predicament._

_What had she been doing roughly three months ago to change things? What could have possibly changed to have allowed this to happen? She knew it could happen, but she’d been careful to drink the potions Morrigan had brewed for her...expect between Denerim and Orzammar when they stopped at Soldier's Peak._

_She had just recently started to feel ill in the morning and would not have bothered Wynne if Alistair had not threatened to drag her to the mage’s room when he caught her heaving up her breakfast earlier. He was terrified that she had caught whatever pestilence was plaguing the Alienage. So she had smiled, kissed his cheek after rinsing her mouth out, and promise to see Wynne before they left for the Landsmeet that afternoon._

_“Grey Warden?”_

_Shaking her head, Aoife gave Wynne a small smile, “I don’t think I will, at least not yet. Aside from Riordan, Alistair and I are still the only other Grey Wardens in Ferelden. I can’t let this get in the way of ending the Blight.”_

_“But shouldn’t you at least discuss this with him?”_

_Aoife took a deep breath, her emotions had been fragile lately and likely to shatter around her at the slightest provocation. She took another breath, reminding herself that Wynne was just concerned and not trying to be an interfering old biddy, “Wynne, I know you’re worried, and I understand that I really do, but I can’t tell him this. He’d bundle me up and tuck me away, and be so panicked about my welfare that he’d probably fail to find, never mind kill, the Archdemon.”_

_Wynne narrowed her eyes, tucking her arms over her chest, “Really Aoife, I hardly think Alistair would be that patronizing.”_

_“No, Wynne he’s not, but he’d still treat me like I was made of glass,” Aoife held up her hand hoping to stave off any further protests before she continued. “Alistair wants a family more than anything, Wynne. I saw that when we were in the Fade. It almost broke him to lose the Grey Wardens at Ostagar after he had was forced into the Chantry because of Lady Isolde’s jealousy. Do you really think he’d let me fight if he knew? And if he did, do you think his mind would really be on the battle in front of him? I won’t risk his life over this, not when I don’t even know if I’ll be able to carry. My blood is teeming with_ darkspawn _taint after all.”_

_Worrying at the corner of her thin lips, Wynne dropped her arms to her sides once more, “I suppose you have a point.”_

_Smiling warmly at the_ mage _, Aoife chuckled, “I promise when this all over, I will tell him.”_

Aoife caught herself between a sob and a groan as she wound into a smaller ball. She pulled a pillow down from the head of the bed and hugged it tightly to her chest, hoping to drive the memories of the day from her head.

_How could I have been so stupid?_

She could hear Pook, her mabari war hound, whimpering at the end of the bed, and knew he was waiting for permission to join her on the bed. But instead of calling him up with her, Aoife buried her head deeper into her pillow.

When she let Alistair duel Loghain, it had been a matter of giving him the courtesy that he had given her with Howe. She had been a little surprised at the grim sternness of his features as he beheaded the former war hero, but she wondered if he hadn’t thought the same of her when they had fought Howe. And she certainly had not been taken aback when he immediately declared himself King even as Loghain’s head rolled down the carpet towards the throne. After all, they had talked about the possibility of him becoming King, as well as their mutual dislike and distrust of Anora well before the Landsmeet had gathered. But she had been entirely unprepared for what happened when they had returned to Arl Eamon’s estate.

They were supposed to be celebrating. They were supposed to be reveling in their success and wallowing in feeling of this small victory. They were supposed to be enjoying a moment of peace with before they marched to Redcliffe. Wasn't that why they had gathered in the dining hall of the estate? She should have known better, the second Eamon whispered in Alistair's ear as they returned to the Arl's estate. She should have seen this coming.

Fisting the pillow into her mouth to quiet her increasingly strident sobs, Aoife’s mind turned her thoughts into a rolling chant of  _How did I not see this coming?_  And  _Do I really mean so little to him?_

If any her of companions had asked her exactly what Alistair had said to her as she huddled next to him in the corner of the dining hall nearest the door, she wouldn’t have been able to give them an account. The whole conversation had been so astonishing that she had stood there dumbfounded. Her mouth failing to function as her heart fell to pieces.

She knew that she had probably been cruel, wanting him to know exactly how much he was hurting her with his pathetic excuses. But even now, trying to bury herself in her bed, she could not recall the conversation, despite her normally impeccable capacity for recall. What she did know without any doubt was that when she had finally composed herself, Alistair was already walking away. She had called out to him, watched him hesitate for a moment, and then felt her heart rip anew as he shook his head and continued on his way. She ran back to her room then, startling servants as she went. Before collapsing onto her bed, she had locked the door, not caring that they had to gather their things to meet Arl Eamon and the armies she had gruelingly pieced together back in Redcliffe.

Burying her head under her pillow, she let go of the tears she had been holding onto during her flight from the kitchen. Her mind flickered between Alistair and the things Howe had said to her before she gutted the obsequious bastard, looking for more reserves of sorrow and pain. Then it pulled her through all the guilt and rage she had been carefully burying while she had a promise to honor and a Blight to end. She cried until her eyes felt raw and her body felt hollowed out. At some point, she whistled hoarsely, and Pook climbed onto the bed, wedging his snout between her chest and the pillow she was still clutching.

The fire had almost burned out when the well of her sorrow ran dry, leaving her spent and cold. She rose, ignoring the plaintive whine from Pook, and walked over to the fire. Poking listlessly at the embers, she put a few logs on the fire and watched them catch.

Voices tugged at her from just outside the door to her room, bringing her back from the void of her thoughts.

“You will not disturb her,” the first voice was gruff and low.

“Yes, I think you have done enough damage for one day, don’t you?” The second was sneering and laced with malice.

“We need to leave. Arl Eamon has already left for Redcliffe and we need to make our way there as soon as possible,” the third voice, she almost didn’t recognize it, was hard edged and grinding. “We have a duty, Morrigan.”

With that, Aoife felt something snap within her chest. Wiping the salt from her face, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She noted how quiet the hall seemed to get as she unlocked the door to her room.

Sten was standing just in front of her door, blocking her view a bit, as he looked over his shoulder at her. She could barely make out through the gaps Sten’s hulking shape left in the doorframe that Morrigan was standing just off to the side of the burly qunari with her hands firmly planted on her hips. Alistair’s golden brown hair was only just visible in the distance, and she found herself clutching the door tightly at the sight.

“Alistair is right,” she could almost feel the ice in her voice as her words scraped along her tongue. She stared hard into Sten’s vibrant lavender hued eyes, “Will you see to the preparations for me Sten? I want us on the road within the hour.”

Sten bowed his head, “I will see it done, Kadan.”

She almost allowed herself to feel something other than the hollowness that had filled her when the qunari roughly jostled his way past Alistair, sending the former Templar skittering off towards a wall. She then turned her attention to Morrigan, “Do you have a moment, Morrigan? I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“Certainly,” the wilder witch's smile curled into a self-satisfied sneer that Aoife knew was aimed directly at Alistair. Had it been any other moment but now, Aoife would have chastised her abrasive friend for the insult. Instead, Aoife finished opening the door to her room and let Morrigan by, settling her arms over her chest to hide how much her both hands were shaking once the witch was well passed the doorway.

Taking a breath, Aoife finally looked at Alistair. She could see the concern in his eyes that for once did not reach his face. _When did he learn that?_ Then she noticed the tightness in his jaw as his eyes watched Morrigan in her room. Aoife spoke with all the cold dispassion she could muster as his eyes turned back to hers, “Go help Sten, Alistair.”

He managed to look slightly outraged by her obvious command, “Aoife, please...I…”

Grinding her teeth, she crushed her hands into fists, “Go...Help...Sten. I have nothing to say to you.”

He seemed to sway as if her words had actually hit him and his eyes seemed to go hazy. For that brief moment, she thought that he would ignore her order, storm into her room, and hurl Morrigan out, perhaps even physically if the wilder witch refused to leave. Part of her wished he would, but then he shook his head again, turned sharply on his heel, and stormed off after Sten.

She felt faint when she walked back to her room, and felt Morrigan’s eyes watching her every move.

“You have not told him then?” she said simply once Aoife had closed the door.

Not trusting her voice anymore, Aoife shook her head as she sat down on the edge of her bed, pulling her tear sodden pillow into her lap.

“Wynne has told you how unique your situation is at least?” Morrigan’s voice held a tinge of disbelief as Aoife watched her stride over to the bed.

Aoife nodded feeling tears building within her again. Wynne had been so shocked that that little revelation had tumbled out of her lips as soon as the mage’s hand had came in contact with Aoife’s abdomen. Apparently, there were no records, lore, or even rumors that Grey Wardens were even capable of having children. After all, unlike the dragon hunting clans of Nevarra, there were no lineages or great houses of Wardens. Aoife, for her part, had been more surprised that the life she carried held no taint, despite how thickly it seemed to coil through Aoife’s own veins. Well, she had been, until the pain of Alistair shattering what was left of her tatted together heart overwhelmed every other emotion she had experienced in the course of the day.

Morrigan let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed her brow before looking down at Aoife, “I could give you something to be rid of it, if you like. T’would not be pleasant, but it can be done.”

She felt like she had been suddenly plunged into Lake Calenhad in winter. Aoife gripped the pillow in her lap until her knuckles turned white and rasped, “No.”

“What do you intend to do then?” Morrigan’s voice, for all its usual haughtiness, was quiet and full of an unsure awkwardness as the wilder witch came to sit beside Aoife.

It was a rattling breath Aoife took, pressing her eyes tight as if the act of drawing air into her lungs that forcefully would pull back her tears and bury them deep within her chest. Thinking of the promise she made to her father, she opened her eyes slowly and stared into the fire, “I intend to survive. Whatever comes next, Morrigan, I intend to survive it.”

“And then?” it was almost a whisper, the question that left Morrigan’s lips.

Aoife felt the hard edges of her anger as she chuckled, “And then Alistair will be King, presiding over the realm and doing his duty for a change. And I will do mine, whether in Highever or with the Wardens.”

“So you still won’t tell him, even then?” there was the slightest bit of awe in Morrigan’s voice, and Aoife almost smiled at the idea that she could surprise the apostate mage even now.

She looked at Morrigan and saw the witch flinch under her stare, “What would be the point? He’s already proven that I was deluding myself where his affections were concerned. I loved him more than I thought I could after all I lost and he...discarded me like I was nothing more than a petty tumble. How could I ever trust him after that?” She looked away from Morrigan and back at the fire, feeling the sear in her words. “I won’t be a duty, Morrigan. Something caged and cosseted out of  _obligation_  to secure his line.”

As the room settled into silence, Aoife felt as though she was pulling the quiet into her chest and using it to forge her heart anew.

Morrigan finally sighed when one of the logs on the fire let out a jarring pop, “I don’t pretend to understand love. It seems to be a delusion of sorts, but it appears that the Templar is not as chivalrous as he would have us believe. Why keep his child then? Surely you would rather be rid of it? I certainly would were I you.”

It was a grim realization that dawned in Aoife as she listened to Morrigan. She knew with unequivocal certainty that the duty which had kept her from shattering for so long would no longer keep her pieces in place. And with that realization there was also the knowledge that all that kept her from letting the darkness inside her swallow her whole was a life gifted to her by a man who had so carelessly torn apart her strung together heart. She took another breath, willing her silent and hollowed out heart to be strong for the life she now harbored before she spoke, “It is as much my child as his and it gives me something to live for, Morrigan. Something other than duty at least, I don’t think duty will keep me alive anymore.”


	3. "Well I don't care if loneliness kills me, I don't wanna love somebody else"- A Great Big World

Tossing the dispatch on his desk, Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose. It was pointless to try and wade through any more of his correspondence tonight as his thoughts were miles away. He’d have to hope that the negotiations between the Chantry and the Circle of Magi he was going to be tied up in tomorrow did not venture too far from the typical spouting of entrenched viewpoints.

In the three months since his coronation, Alistair had thrown himself in learning everything he could about the country he now had to manage. It had been difficult, but oddly satisfying, much in the same way certain aspects of his Templar training had been. He still wasn’t sure he'd make a good king, but he was determined to try. Eamon had been and still was indispensable, of course. The Arl had more than saved Alistair from making some rather impolitic decisions in those rough first weeks of his rule, but Alistair was finding that his patience with the Arl of Redcliffe was wearing thin. The man simply did not know when to drop a subject.

Since taking up the crown, Eamon had been nipping at Alistair’s heels to marry and secure the Theirin line, but Alistair simply glared hard at the Arl until Eamon stopped talking. The Arl, for all his good intentions, was partially responsible for what Alistair had done to the love of his life. It gave Alistair some small amount of comfort to remind the Arl of Redcliffe of this fact every time the subject of marriage came up. It even managed to shut Eamon up sometimes, grumbling about Theirin stubbornness. Well, until the next eligible Bannorn bred lady was flaunted around the court.

Leaning into the tufted back of his arm-chair, Alistair rubbed his temples wishing there was a set of nimble fingers he could beg to work away the tension that was building behind his eyes. The day's court session had been a tedious procession of Arls and Banns swearing fealty to him. Alistair was almost hoarse from all the talking he had done acknowledging the newly minted fealty of the nobles who had not been able to come to the rushed coronation after the Battle of Denerim. The only thing that had stemmed the tide of his utter boredom with the whole affair was when he saw Teyrn Fergus Cousland standing before him.

Alistair had almost forgotten how pointed the absence of the Hero of Ferelden and the Teyrn of Highever had been at the time he was made King of Ferelden. Eamon had been livid, especially since they both managed to show up for the reception Alistair had held in her honor. Alistair, for his part, had been content that she bothered to show up at all, it gave him one last chance to see her, even if she made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him.   

A hush had settled over the great hall as Fergus Cousland bit through each word of loyalty he spoke at the King. Even Alistair’s guards looked nervously at the Teyrn but all Alistair could see was Fergus’ now famous sister in the features of the Teyrn of Highever. It was in the shape of the eyes and the slope of the nose, though Aoife’s features had been finer, the resemblance was still there taunting Alistair.

 _Of course she would tell her brother what happened_ , Alistair thought as he had watched the strain of Fergus’ jaw as the Teyrn finished chomping through the oaths to the crown.

Alistair sat up in his chair as he gave up on the prospect of getting rid of his growing headache without a serious dose of alcohol. Dragging his weary frame from his chair, he chuckled softly as he thought of how impressed Oghren would have been with the tolerance he had built up since becoming King.

There was a sharp rap on the door of his study.

Groaning, Alistair stiffened, stilling like a startled hind on the chance it was Eamon again. The Arl had already intruded on him twice after Alistair had excused himself from the fealty reception in an attempt to get him to finally and formally censure the Teyrn of Highever. When Eamon's voice failed to assault him from behind the door, Alistair tried to sound royally annoyed at the imposition of someone bothering him this late in the evening, “Come in.”

Bann Teagan poked his head out from behind the heavy oak door, “Your Majesty. I thought you might still be awake and so I decided to take the liberty of raiding your larders for some restoratives after today's festivities.”

A smile spread over Alistair’s face as he crossed the room to hold opened the door for his encumbered Uncle, “Thank the Maker, Teagan, that it’s you, I don’t think I could take your brother right now.”

“Yes, well, just be thankful that I was finally able to convince him to spend time with Connor and Isolde before the Templars come to collect the boy in the morning,” Teagan said with a grimace as he unloaded a round of hard cow’s milk cheese on Alistair’s desk, along with a loaf of seed bread, a pair of toasting forks, and what Alistair suspected was a rare Antivan brandy from the royal wine cellars. “He is less than pleased that you did not censure the Fergus Cousland for his behavior this afternoon.”

“Yes, well the man has good reason not to be fond of me,” Alistair rubbed his temples again.

Fergus Cousland had not stopped glaring at him for rest of the afternoon and during one of the rare moments Alistair did not have Eamon at his side, the Teyrn had made a point of telling Alistair exactly what he thought of the new King. None of it had been flattering, but it had been quite colorful, and Alistair had stopped short of asking the slightly inebriated Teyrn if his sister had had him memorize that speech. It sounded more like Aoife was yelling at him than Fergus, but Alistair had managed to bite his tongue. Then Teyrn of Highever had told him that it was only by the grace of his sister that he did not call Alastair out for what he had done, as it was unlikely that she would ever be able to marry now which had both confused Alistair and given him fluttering sense of hope. Andraste must have been watching over him at that moment though, because Eamon seemed to swoop back over to his side, whisking Alistair away before he had a chance to say anything he might regret.

“If I may be frank, your Majesty?” Teagan looked sternly at Alistair as he passed him a glass of rich amber brandy.

Alistair groaned again, even as he savored the smoothness of the brandy against his tongue, “I wish you would stop calling me that Teagan, we are practically family of a sort.”

Teagan’s mouth quirked with a brief smile before turning to a countenance of stone, “I think in this case, your Majesty, the formality might be merited.”

“Oh fine,” Alistair sighed, slumping unceremoniously into one of the armchairs before the large fireplace, and was rather impressed with himself that he had not spilled his drink. He waved his hand in a mocking salute, “You have our leave to speak frankly, Bann Teagan.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the Bann of Rainesfere gave Alistair a curt nod, as he stopped sawing through the seed loaf and pointed the bread knife at his King, “Then with your leave sire, I would like to point out that you are being an utter fool, if not a complete moron.”

Alistair choked, sputtering out his mouthful brandy, and feeling the fiery liquid burn the hairs out of his nostrils, “Maker’s mercy Teagan, you could have waited until I swallowed at least. And your words are not news, you know, I am well aware of what the Bannorn thinks of me.”

Teagan made a slight stabbing gesture with the bread knife as he glared at Alistair, “The Bannorn have more respect for you now, my liege. You have proven to be a most apt student in matters of state and have impressed them and Eamon accordingly, but it was not the Bannorn I was referring to.”

Alistair rolled his eyes, pushing himself up from his chair to pour another tumble of brandy and tear off the half cut slab of bread, “Please tell me you are not going to lecture me about marriage, your brother already does enough of that.”

“After a fashion, though I thought more to berate you for not marrying the one person we both know you should have,” Teagan laid the bread knife down and passed Alistair a toasting fork.

“I hope you are not referring to Anora or I might have to call the guards in and have them haul you off to Fort Drakon for insolence,” Alistair waved his freshly speared bread at Teagan.

“Hardly,” Teagan seem to be doing his best to not roll his eyes at his King. “I was, however, thinking of Aoife Cousland.”

The room suddenly felt very warm and Alistair wanted nothing more than to be anywhere other than where he was, staring at the Bann of Rainesfere with his mouth undoubtedly agape until the smell of burning bread hit his already singed nasal passages.

“Blast it,” he muttered, flicking the charred bread off his toasting fork and slumping deeper into his chair. He took a look at his brandy and downed what was left in one loud gulp.

“I take it from your majesty’s reaction that I am not mistaken in my assumption that the two of you were involved?”

Alistair’s grip tightened on his empty glass, “I strongly suggest you drop this Teagan.”

“I only wish to say, my King, that I know what my brother suggested you do, but is it really worth the misery you are putting yourself through?” Teagan twirled his glass thoughtfully over his lips before taking a modest sip of his brandy. “My brother often forgets that he married for love, despite the problems it caused, so he is hardly in a position to pass judgment.”

Setting his glass on the floor lest it find itself hurled across the room, Alistair looked grimly at Teagan. He did not want to think about what he had done to Aoife, she had been haunting his thoughts most of the day as it was. Swatting away the memories that threatened to overwhelm him, he growled at the Bann, “I’m warning you Teagan…”

The Arl cut him off, “Just let me finish and I swear to you I’ll never bring up the subject again.”

 _I’m going to regret this, I just know it_ , Alistair thought as he nodded his head for Teagan to continue.

Teagan took another small sip of brandy, “I know that there would be no heir if you had married Anora, just as there might not be one if you married Aoife, and there still might not be one even if you married one of the ladies my brother is determined to throw at you,”

“How do you…,” Alistair’s mouth gaped the words as his over taxed mind finally caught up with the conversation and reminded Alistair of his last rather belligerent conversation with Teagan’s brother on the subject of royal nuptials, “Eamon told you didn’t he?”

“He wasn’t exactly happy with you at that particular juncture, Alistair,” a soft smile painted itself across Teagan’s face and reminded Alistair of easy sense of affection the Bann seemed to have for him. Eamon cared, Alistair knew the Arl cared, but sometimes that care was trumped by the Arl of Redcliffe's sense of duty. “But do you really want to spend the rest of your life alone just to please my brother?”

Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, Alistair cradled his now throbbing head, “You think I haven’t thought of how much of a complete ass I was? I'd give anything to take back that moment.”

“Then what’s stopping you, your Majesty?”

Alistair felt his mouth pull into a lopsided grin, “Would you believe me if I told you I'm coward, Teagan?”

****  
  



	4. "But I never told you, What I should have said" - Colbie Caillat

“Westron _wind, when wilt thou blow? The small rain down doth rain_ ,” Aoife's voice was reedy and thin, buffeted by the winds off the Waking Sea. She could have smoothed the edges, made it prettier, but her only audience aside from the gulls was currently tumbling about her womb.

“ _Maker, if my love were in my arms_ ,” She rubbed her taut belly through the soft velvet of her dress as she sang and laughed through the final line when she felt a tiny hand press against her own. “ _And I in my bed again*_.”

She had spent the better part of a week trying to find a song that would still her constantly fidgeting babe. Wynne had assured her that the babe merely found the cadence in which Aoife sang the words with soothing and that any words sung in that fashion would serve. But Aoife took the fact the child had reacted so strongly to this particular song as confirmation that the Maker was determined to remind her daily of why her heart still ached even as it swelled in concert with her growing belly.

When she first sang this particular song, Aoife had been thinking of Fergus and how her brother would tease his wife Oriana with the lyrics whenever the Antivan was mad at him. She had not sung with the training of Leliana or the skill of a minstrel even, but with the simplicity of the goat girl or maid whose only thought was the emotion that she was trying to evoke with her voice. She thought she had tucked herself far enough away from the camp that no one would hear her, she had told everyone she was going to see if she could find some deathroots for her poisons after all. Of course, that never seemed to stop Alistair from intruding. It had been frustrating at first, then endearing, and finally maddening. Still raw from his words after the Landsmeet, she threw one of her daggers just past his ear the last time he followed her out of camp.

She tucked one of the stray hairs the wind had teased from her thickly braided hair behind her ear and began humming as she swayed back and forth. Fergus would have been appalled that she had climbed the narrow steps of the north tower, but Wynne knew better than to deny Aoife her moments of quiet. The castle had been in a constant swirl of activity since they had returned four months ago, the last of the Couslands. Between the dwarven masons, the carpenters from Rainesfere, and the fresh-faced squires, the castle seemed to be constantly awash with some kind of noise. The babe seemed to find it as nerve-jangling as Aoife did.

“Wynne told me I would find you up here, sister.”

Aoife allowed herself a smile, as she turn to see Fergus leaning in the doorway that lead onto the battlements of the tower, “Fergus, when did you get back?”

“Just now, though I did decide to change out of my armor before the attempting those stairs.”

“And how was court?” she cringed, slightly exasperated that she felt compelled to ask. It wasn’t like she needed to torture herself with accounts of how well the King was doing.

“Tedious. I spent most of the fealty ceremony hoping that I could get the King to combust if I just glared at him hard enough,” Fergus pushed off the doorframe and walked over her, leaning over his arms as he settled his wide frame into one the crenels of the parapet wall. “I still don’t understand why you will not let me call that man out. The Bannorn should know what he’s done, leaving you like that. It makes me angry every time I think about it.”

“I know what he can do brother, I fought beside him for a year remember,” Aoife tugged her light wool shawl back over her shoulders feeling a sudden chill. “You’re a decent hand at a blade, but you would not best him.”

“Humph,” Fergus huffed and continued to look out over the castle before turning to face Aoife again, “Wynne tells me that the babe is not letting you get any sleep.”

Aoife sighed, glad that Fergus had changed the subject. She had never truly given him a complete account of what had happened between her and Alistair. He assumed the worst when she collapsed into a tearful heap upon seeing him alive after the Battle of Denerim, she knew that much. With the doubts that plagued her since then, Aoife had simply left Fergus to come to his own conclusions. She certainly had not wanted to talk to anyone about Alistair since then.

Letting her smile grow into a genuine curve of affection as her hand once again went to her belly, she hoped to distract her brother from her prolonged silence, “No, I am afraid the little ser has other ideas about that.”

Fergus stood straight and reached out tentatively with his sword arm, “May I?”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered how Fergus could barely keep his hands off Oriana’s swelling form. Covering his hand with hers, she moved it to where she had felt the babe kick earlier. She watched how intently Fergus stared at his hand, even though his eyes were slicked over with a distant haze. When the babe rustled, grazing the skin under her brother’s palm, she caught the tears that rolled down his cheeks. She squeezed his hand, keeping it over her womb, “This family is ours now, you, me, and this babe. I don’t need nor want anything else.”

Fergus looked at her, his soft brown eyes still wet but set with a hard determination. She knew that look all too well. “Still, the child will be....”

“Please Fergus, don’t. The only thing this child is is the next Teyrn of Highever if you don’t remarry. That’s all he or she needs to be heir to.”

“Aoife, I only want…”

“No, Fergus. We’ve discussed this,” she let her hand drop before swooping her arms over her chest, “I won’t marry just to make my life easier, and I won’t tell that coward about this babe just so he’s obligated to marry me. I’ve no interest in any of it anymore. All I want is to live here quietly and raise my child.”

“And the Wardens?” Fergus sounded like he was biting through the words as he slipped his hand off her belly.

Aoife shrugged, not wanting to argue with him again over something she could not change, “I’ve already written the First Warden. I assume he’ll assign someone else to Amaranthine.”

Fergus tossed his head and mirrored Aoife’s stance, “And if he doesn’t?”

 _Andraste’s flaming sword_ , Aoife pinched her eyes shut and let out a long hiss of a sigh, grateful for once that she could no longer comfortably carry anything with a bladed edge on her person. When she felt slightly calmer, she matched Fergus’s glare with her own, “Then I will waddle my way to Vigil’s Keep with whomever Wynne decides is capable enough to midwife and hope that ruling Amaranthine proves no more challenging than presiding over Highever when you’ve been gone.”

Slumping against one of the merions that dotted the parapet wall, Fergus rubbed his forehead and then looked at Aoife with a wide grin, “Hmp, and here I thought motherhood might have mellowed you a bit, but I see you're still father’s fierce girl.”

For a moment her breath caught in her throat and then she laughed until tears streamed out the corners of her eyes and her face hurt with grinning. Wiping her face, she looked fondly over at her brother, “Oh Fergus, did you really expect me to change?”

“No, I suppose not,” Fergus looked away from her, and back out over the castle, “Father would be proud of you, you know.”

Aoife clasped the cap of the battlement with one hand and her brother’s shoulder with the other, “He would be proud of you too, brother.”

“Hmm,” Fergus gave a brief sketch of a nod as he stood up straight, his eyes still shining and hazed. Then with a tousling shake of his head that seemed to clear the fog some, he extended Aoife his arm, “Shall we go down?”

Sighing, Aoife took one last look over the castle and down the ragged crags of the escarpment towards Highever and the thin glimmer of sea shining beyond it. The sun was beginning to slip low behind the castle and soon the shadows would grow long and scare away the scant warmth of early autumn. It was well past time for her to be indoors, preferable in front of a warm fire.

“Let's,” she said simply, finally taking hold of her brother’s proffered arm.

Fergus insisted on walking ahead of her down the narrow steps of the tower, and having her hold skirts high while she kept her other hand on the well worn banister. Before the Blight, she would have chided him for being over-protective and muscled her way around him to storm hurriedly down the stairs. Now, with a feeling of great weariness washing over her, she gave him a wry smile but did as he asked.

They had barely crossed the courtyard when Aoife saw Wynne hurrying towards them, “There you two are. My lord, Seneschal Drustan needs to speak with you, and I have somethings to discuss with Lady Cousland before I leave.”

“I am sure the man is going to badger me about the repairs again,” Fergus sighed. “Are you sure you won’t stay Wynne? You know you are most welcome in Highever.”

Aoife watched Wynne bob her head in a truncated bow and smile at Fergus, feeling nothing but the cool breeze of twilight trail across her face. Wynne’s eyes flickered briefly over her, before focusing back on Fergus, “Thank you your lordship, but I have to get back to the Tower. Irving needs someone to keep a lid on the pot while he’s in Denerim.”

Fergus smiled warmly, “Well, I suppose we cannot deny the First Enchanter. If I don’t see you before you leave, please know that I appreciate everything you have done.”

Leaning over Aoife, Fergus kissed her lightly on the forehead before letting go of her arm, “I will see you at dinner, I hope?”

“Of course brother,” Aoife knew she had probably given him a weak smile that did not reach her eyes because his hand came up to rub her cheek as if there were tears to be swept away.

Thankfully, Fergus didn’t say anything more but his hand trailed down from her cheek and gave her upper arm a squeeze before he left to find his Seneschal.

Without looking at Wynne, Aoife turned on her heel and began walking towards her room. She counted twelve steps before she heard Wynne’s light footfalls fall in behind her. The mage followed her like a second shadow. Whatever Wynne had to say to her apparently merited them being out of earshot of the servants bustling about and the workmen winding down their day. Shaking her head slightly, Aoife simply continued walking. She had to think about where she was going anyway, picking her way around piles of stone and lumber towards the bedrooms in the newly rebuilt keep.

When they reached her room, Aoife strode inside tossing aside her shawl and making her way to the fireplace on the far side of the room. Aside from the bath in the western corner, the fireplace had been the only thing Aoife had insisted on when Fergus had consulted her about the layout of her new apartments.

It wasn’t until she heard the latch click behind her that Aoife realized that Wynne had indeed followed her into her chambers.

“How much longer are you going to do this to yourself?” Wynne’s voice was a mixture of concern and frustration, a sound Aoife was becoming quite familiar with of late.

Aoife could feel the press of the mage’s grey eyes on her, and hear the shift of mages’ robes as Wynne walked closer, but Aoife kept her attention on the fire in front of her, stubbornly trying to warm her hands, “I’m not sure, to what are you referring?”

Wynne’s sigh was almost monumental in its shuddering exasperation, “You know exactly what I mean Aoife. This is not healthy, for you or the baby. And Maker’s Mercy you should tell Alistair.”

Aoife snapped her head around, glaring at Wynne, “Why? Why do I need to tell him? Because he’s the father? Is that your only justification? Because as far as I'm concerned it’s not good enough. We spent the entire Blight finding our way through all the lies, misdirection, and politics to do what was right and build the strongest army. I thought I could trust him. And then he walked away from me, claiming that this,” Aoife placed a hand on her womb, catching herself just shy of slapping her belly in frustration, “was impossible. Tell me how am I supposed to trust him? How am I ever supposed to believe anything he says again?”

Wynne snatched up Aoife’s hands, pressing them together and winding them within her own, “Aoife, please, you must understand…”

Almost snarling as she cut Wynne off, Aoife tried to pull her hands out of Wynne’s, but the mage held her fast. She could feel her emotions fraying as she spat words at the mage, “Understand what, Wynne? What do I need to understand? I spent a year doing my damndest to keep us all alive. He watched me turn myself into knots trying to ensure that Ferelden came out of this without being completely decimated. I saved the Circle, I got that grief poisoned elf to see reason, and I put that power hungry bastard of a dwarf on the throne, because an insular Orzammar doesn’t do Thedas any damn good. Did he really think I wouldn’t do the same for us? Did he think I wouldn’t try?”

“Oh child,” Wynne let go of one of Aoife’s hands and brushed away the stray hairs that had slipped over her brow, “Do you really think it was that easy for him?”

“It certainly looked easy,” she grumbled, feeling set off balance by Wynne’s gesture, being too near the memories of her mother's comfort.

Wynne shook her head and then look firmly at Aoife, “It wasn’t. You may not have been able to see it, but the rest of us did.”

Aoife tried not to flinch under the older woman’s gaze, “I find that hard to believe.”

“You shouldn’t,” Wynne said crisply, “We were all practically walking on eggshells around you two those last few days before the battle. And now I’ve watched you wander these halls like a ghost Aoife. You hardly smile, you eat just enough to keep the babe healthy, and you barely sleep. I know he hurt you, but don’t you think he deserves a chance to redeem himself, or will you let your fool notion that he never loved you continue to eat you alive?”

“I…” Aoife felt her shoulders sag and she pinched her eyes shut shaking her head, “I don’t know.”

She felt Wynne’s hand slide along her jaw and her thumb swept away the tears Aoife knew were now running down her face. Wynne’s voice was gentle, a soft light intruding on the darkness that wound around Aoife like a thick suffocating blanket. “And you don’t have to, Aoife. You just have to allow yourself to feel something other than all that anger and despair that you have been holding on to since the Landsmeet. I have to stop in Denerim on my way back to Kinlock Hold; I could bring a letter to him if you like. I can see that he gets it, and if things are truly as you fear I can make him promise to leave you and the child be. One way or the other, Aoife, you need to know. This limbo you’ve been enduring is killing you.”

The fire that fluttered faintly in Aoife saw some sense in Wynne’s words, but the rest of her wanted nothing more than to sleep, to close her eyes and make the whole mess disappear. That fire caught on the memories of the Sloth demon she had fought back in Circle Tower, chiding her about what easy prey she would make now. She shuddered, looking hard at Wynne as she opened her eyes, “Bring me paper and ink then, before I change my mind.”

****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Westorn Wind is a Medieval lyric poem that has been adapted to reflect the beliefs of the people of Thedas.


	5. "Fairer than the sweetest flower, Restless as the wildest way, Pored in with love deep as a ocean, This is the girl that I did win" - Crooked Still

It had been raining for the better part of a week. An unusual occurrence for the time of year, but it suited Alistair’s mood just fine.

Negotiations between the Templars, the Chantry, and the Circle of Magi were not going well. Apparently, the Templar that he and his companions had rescued from atop the Circle Tower had decided to go over Knight-Commander Greagoir’s head, which mean that Alistair now had to include Ferelden's Grand Cleric in any further talks. The woman could turn fresh grapes into vinegary wine with just one disapproving glare. And she had certainly not forgotten that Alistair had once been days away from becoming a full-fledged Templar.

All he wanted to do was reward the Circle for their part in saving Ferelden, and now Alistair had nothing to show for all his good intentions save an ever-growing diplomatic nightmare. He should have taken Arl Eamon’s advice and just rammed his proposals through as part of the coronation. There would have been grumbling, and possibly some outrage, particularly over what Alistair had in mind for the Dalish Elves and the status of the Alienages, but it would have gotten swept up in the revelry of having just survived the Fifth Blight. Instead, Alistair had inadvertently opted for the hard way of ruling. He supposed that there was one bright spot to his situation; it was affording him multiple opportunities to practice his diplomacy and negotiation tactics. With any luck he’d have the Landsmeet eating out of his hand when it convened next spring.

Flopping into one of the more comfortable chairs in his study, Alistair found his fingers rubbing at his temples again. The headaches were becoming a daily occurrence. It was the stress, or so his healers assured him, and the fact he had little or no time in his day to relax, or even breathe without someone bothering him about something. He had joked to Eamon once that if he had know what ruling a kingdom entailed he would have forgone it in favor of staying a Grey Warden and may have even opted to die while slaying the Archdemon. The Arl had not been amused.

More than anything Alistair wanted someone to talk to, someone who understood his humor and didn’t look at him like he had grown two heads when he made a sarcastic or self-deprecating remark. Teagan had been somewhat helpful in that respect, but the Bann had left for Rainesfere just after the first of Kingsway and it was now nearly Harvestmere.

There was a light rap on the door.

Alistair sighed. Light raps meant servants, and servants meant messages from the minor lords of the city, or important dispatches from a far flung Ban or Arl, rarely light raps could be the announcement of the occasional unexpected guest. He hoped it was a dispatch or even some triviality of a Denerim noble, something he could ignore until after dinner or maybe until after tea. He would be deliriously happy with himself if he could manage to ignore his kingly duties till after tea. He might even forget he was responsible for a whole kingdom for a bit.

The rap on his door was louder this time, and came with a plaintive questioning, “My Lord King?”

“Yes, yes, come in,” Alistair bounded out of his chair to stand beside it. He found it was better to stand up and at least try to look like a king whenever the servants had anything to tell him.

One of the upper pages opened the heavy oaken door to his study. Alistair hung his sword arm over the top of the wingback armchair he had just vacated, drumming his fingers lightly on the tufted edge as he watched the scrawny elf push open the door. He had tried once to open the door for a servant and had gotten a rather long and trite lecture from his Chamberlain about how he should refrain from that, as it made the servants nervous. Alistair stopped listening to the man after the Chamberlain made some off-color joke about “knife-ears.” The next day, after conferring with Hahren Valendrian, he sacked the Chamberlain in favor of an elf named Cadoc. Now, he opened doors for over-encumbered servants whenever he damn well pleased, but mostly he let them do their jobs and spoke regularly with Cadoc about how to improve working conditions.

The page finally stood holding open the door as he fisted his right hand, bowing slightly at the waist as he pounded the fist over his heart, “Lady Wynne of the Circle of Magi to see you, sire.”

Alistair almost forgot he was annoyed, a grin curling over his face as he watched Wynne sweep into his study in a flurry of green velvet and snow fox trimmed robes, “Wynne, my favoritest mage, how are you? Aren’t you supposed to be in Tevinter with Shale?”

“I am afraid that particular trip has been delayed your Majesty.” Wynne replied with a sharp bob of her head.

“Please, Wynne,” Alistair groaned and tried very hard not to roll his eyes, “Spare me the formalities. So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“I needed to see Irving before going back to the Tower so he could apprise me of how things were going here,” Wynne smiled, and Alistair found himself instantly at ease, “But I thought I’d check in on you too.”

Alistair let the corners of his mouth turn upwards into a small smirk. “Here to lecture me, eh? Well, let’s get on with it then, I haven’t got all day you know. Eamon is sure to swoop down on me at any moment and drag me off to some boring meeting. Probably with the Orlesian ambassador if I am really unlucky.”

Wynne chuckled, “Still the same Alistair I see. I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor at least.”

“Ha! You should see me in of one my many audiences, I can be as humorless and stoic as Sten once I’m sitting on that damnably uncomfortable throne,” Alistair laughed and then let his eyes slide over Wynne’s face, noting the knotting in her brow that never left despite her warm smile, and the pinched tightness that lingered in the corners of her eyes. “Now tell me are the roads really as bad as I remember them, or did First Enchanter tell you something dire that he is saving to tell me at a more dramatic time?”

Wynne took a deep breath, and pulled a small folded over piece of paper from her belt pouch. It was wrapped in a thin deep blue ribbon and sealed with a verdantly green wax, “I have a letter for you,”

“Oh?” Alistair tried to keep his voice even and unassuming, a tactic he had picked up from Teagan, even though he knew with a dread certainty that there were crossed laurel branches pressed into the green seal. “From who?”

“Aoife Cousland.”

The air got suddenly thin, like Alistair was back climbing the Gherlen’s Pass to get Orzammar. He knew Wynne handed him the letter. He knew he opened it, hearing the snap of the wax seal as he broke it open. He knew he was seeing the rows of Aoife's neat flowing script the sprawling over the paper. He had certainly seen her write often enough to know what her handwriting looked like on a page. But it felt like it was happening to another person, and Alistair was merely a spectator to actions of his own body. When he finally read the words instead of staring at them, Alistair felt like the floor had dropped out from under him and he staggered forward a bit before grabbing the back of his armchair. The words were certainly in her elaborate hand, but the words were bitter and cold, as if it was Morrigan that had written to him instead. He read the note again, for it was certainly more of a note than a letter, just to make sure he understood what he was being told.

He took a breath, feeling anger build in him knowing that it would be very impolitic of him to kill the messenger. It was Wynne after all. What he could not manage to control was how his words practically catapulted out past his clenched teeth as he crumpled the note in his hand, “Is this some kind of cruel joke? Did you really come all this way to torment me, Wynne?”

“No, but did promise to deliver this message for her, though by rights she should have told you months ago,” there was a slight quirk to Wynne’s mouth, and Alistair groaned inwardly. He really was not going to like what she said next, even if she was only trying to lighten the mood. “You do remember where babies come from don’t you, Alistair?”

“Maker’s mercy,” Alistair tightened his grip on both the paper and the back of the chair. “Yes Wynne, I do know where babies come from, it just can’t be possible, as far as I know it shouldn’t BE possible.”

“Well, possible or not it has happened,” Wynne was still looking at him with a mixture of mirth and stony seriousness. “So what are you going to do about it?”

No longer caring about protocol or being a good host, Alistair walked over to the sideboard at the far end of the room and tossed the note down next to the silver decanter. He would have preferred something harder than the warm Antivan red the servants left decanted for him whenever he was holed up in his study but it would have to do. His nerves would not wait. Downing his glass in one swallow, he poured another and deciding to not completely forgo his manners, he poured a second for Wynne. He answered her still hanging question as he passed her a goblet of wine, “Considering the fact she hates me, I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say she hates you,” Wynne smiled cattishly at Alistair over the rim of her glass, “but she is still very hurt and angry.”

“Well, I suppose that makes it better, she could loathe me. Then I might have to worry about her sending Morrigan to turn me into a toad. She might just consider that if she really disliked me. You didn’t happen to see Morrigan while you were in Highever, did you?

“No, Alistair,” Wynne sighed, with a slight edge of exasperation creeping into her voice. “I did not see Morrigan; you know no one’s seen her since the battle with the Archdemon.”

“Good, at least I won’t have to worry about being turned into a toad then.”

“Be serious, Alistair.”

“Oh I am being serious, it would be rather difficult to rule a kingdom and raise a child as a toad don’t you think?” Alistair ran his fingers through his hair. He had it trimmed just after the coronation, but even after all the intervening months, it still didn’t feel right. He had gotten used to it being longer and pulled out of his face in a short ponytail, while he had been helping to save all of Ferelden and ultimately the word from the Blight. Cropping it short again had been more an act of desperation than a matter of style. He didn’t want to see the man he had been, the man that had been with her, staring back at him when he looked in the mirror. “Look, Wynne, I’m grateful you brought me this, but I just don’t know if I can change how things are. She made it very clear the last time we spoke that she never wanted to see me again.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to give up?” Wynne’s brows arched pointedly, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Alistair swore he heard her foot tapping an annoyed rhythm as well. “And here I though you still loved her.”

“I do,” Alistair sighed, feeling like his tongue was dancing on the edge of babbling, “Maker’s breath, I do. I can’t even look at another woman without thinking how much they are not her. I just...it isn’t like there is some book on this, and it’s not like I have much experience with this kind of thing. I mean I can’t just ride to Highever, demand entrance to Castle Cousland, tell her how sorry I am, and then ride off into the sunset with her. I know that works in the stories, I don’t think that actually works in the real world.”

“Really?” and there it was again, that mirth in Wynne’s eyes and that archness in her tone. Alistair wanted to cringe, as if he could avoid what she was going to say next. “As I recall the two of you were apologizing quite often to one another, and rather loudly at times if I remember.”

“That’s not exactly helpful Wynne.”

Wynne smiled at him softly, “Just be gentle, you may not have been her first, but I do think you were the first person she loved. You will need to be patient. Remember that you are both at fault here, but don’t in the name of Andraste yell at her for that.”

Alistair suddenly found that the bottom of his empty goblet was rather fascinating, “So you think I should go see her then?”

“I do, and soon too, she’s due in two months.”

Something clicked together in Alistair’s head, “Wait, doesn’t that mean she was at least three months along when she fought the Archdemon?”

Wynne nodded, “She thinks she conceived sometime after we stopped at Soldier's Peak before heading to Orzammar.”

“Andraste's flaming knickers,” Alistair cursed through his once again clenching teeth. He wasn’t sure who he was mad at now. Aoife for not tell him, Wynne for not saying anything till now, or himself for not noticing what was going on around him at the time.

“Really, Alistair,” Wynne chided, “there no need for such language.”

“This is a lot to take in,” Alistair set his empty goblet down on a side table as he walked around his chair. “I need to sit, and think about this. And, I think I need to be alone too.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. I will be in Denerim for another day if you need to talk more.”

“Thank you, Wynne,” Alistair slumped back into his chair after he heard the door thud closed. He hadn’t watched Wynne leave, and the noise of the door was the only thing that alerted him to the fact she left. Instead his eyes had stayed focused on the fire, while his mind pulled up on the half healed scabs of memories that he thought he was getting over.

****  
  


 


	6. Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bothered me that none of your companions ever question you about drinking the potion at Soldier's peak. This idea has been kicking around my brain for a while, and finally found a home in this piece.

“Why did you drink that noxious concoction anyway?” Alistair looked over his shoulder at his love, holding his chest plate awkwardly against his body as his fingers struggled with the last buckle.

Aoife’s shoulders shrugged as she continued tugging at the laces of her hardened leather boots, “I don’t know. I suppose I just wanted to know what it was.”

Letting out a slow attempt at a calming breath, Alistair set down his chest plate before attacking the buckles of his half gambeson, “And it didn’t occur to you to read the notes or any of the journals scattered about the table first? They might have, oh, I don’t know, told you what that bottle was.”

He heard her boot drop with a sharp thud, “I was looking at the papers, Alistair.”

“Looking at them? Sure you were looking at them, through the glass of that bottle after you drained it,” Alistair shrugged out of the gambeson, and tugged his mailed tabard roughly over his head, before plopping down on the edge of the bed roll to pry off his greaves and sabatons before finally making it down to his thick leather boots. Another boot slammed against the dirt behind him, and Alistair felt the blankets beneath him get sharply tugged upward. She always made it out of her armor before he did. They had had a race about it once, but Alistair chased away those thoughts, he was trying to make a point. “Did it ever occur to you that the vial might have contained something dangerous, like poison or acid even?”

There was an exasperated sigh behind him, “It didn’t smell like an acid.”

Alistair felt another sharp tug on the blankets, which he ignored. Instead, he twisted around, tossing aside the boot he had managed to get off, and looked at Aoife, “What do you mean it didn’t smell like acid?”

She rolled her eyes at him. Her tunic was puffing up from underneath her crossed arms, and the blankets were pulled halfway up her body, straining with the fact they were largely stuck underneath Alistair.

“Well?”

Again, she rolled her eyes and then let out another heavy sigh, “It just didn’t smell like acid, Alistair. Nor did it taste like any potion or poison that I am familiar with, and if you recall I am familiar with quite a lot of them.”

Alistair almost chuckled at the reminder of how unconventional she was for the daughter of a Teyrn, but mostly he grumbled and sneered, “Remind me to thank Zevran for that, I’m sure.”

It was the wrong thing to say, he knew it the second it left his lips and her face began turning a deep shade of red. He shifted on the bedroll, looking away from her sharp-edged glare, and slumped back over his lap to pull off his other boot.

The silence built behind him while he peeled off his thick wool socks. As he balled up the slightly damp wool, he peeked over his shoulder. She was still in the tent, rolled over and facing away from him, curled into a tight ball. Blast it, he knew that stance, when every inch of her screamed at him to leave her alone. It never worked and damn it he really did bruise easily. Pulling off his tunic, he ran his fingers over his hair before slipping under the blankets.

“Look,” he brushed her unruly curls away from her shoulder, ignoring how she stiffened under his touch, and dusted the crook of her neck with a soft kiss. “I’m sorry, but you scared me today.”

When she didn’t move or pull farther away from him, he smiled, just a small tug on one corner of his as he kissed her shoulder and nuzzled aside the soft fabric of her cotton tunic. Her body melted a bit into his, but she still didn’t lean into him which still left a good hand span of space between their bodies. Taking it as a promising sign, he mumbled into the soft skin just above the pulse of her neck, “You looked like you did at your joining again, you know, all hunched over in pain.”

She twisted toward him then, her bared shoulder nudging gently into his chest. Her eyes were still hard green agates, but she was at least looking at him. He brushed stray auburn curls away from her forehead, then swept his thumb over her lightly freckled cheek before dragging it lightly along her jaw, “Wynne and I were about to rush over to you, but then you just snapped your head up and shook it like nothing happened.”

“I’m fine, Alistair.”

“Really?” He couldn’t help the archness that crept into his voice. As much as he loved her, she terrified him sometimes just by being who she was: his lover and the only other Grey Warden in the whole kingdom. “Because your face went white when you finally read those notes. What exactly was that potion for, Aoife?”

A sigh rasped out of her lips and she tried to move away again.

Alistair planted his sword arm on the other side of her body, cutting off her retreat, and then pressed his forehead into hers, “Just tell me already.”

She glared up at him. Sometimes when she was this angry he thought you could sharpen swords with her stare.

“Aoife, please,” he growled, closing his eyes tightly and pressing down on her a bit, feeling her wriggle beneath him and her hands braced against his chest.

“Get off me, you lumbering oaf,” she tried to push him away and failed. Even though she could nimbly best him if they were sparring, she still wasn’t stronger than he was.

“Not until you tell me," Alistair opened his eyes and glared right back at her as her hands balled into fists against him.

“I don’t know,” Aoife’s eyes pinched shut as her fists slammed into his chest.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he leaned up a bit, eyes searching her face for some clue as to what she meant.

“I mean, I...don’t...know,” her words hissed through her clenched teeth and then she shook her head, looking slightly away from him towards the closed flaps of their tent. Alistair almost couldn’t hear what she said next, “I just...the taint...it just feels different somehow. A little less present but also like it’s a little more a part of me.”

“Maker’s mercy, Aoife.”

“I know,” she looked back him, the green of her eyes shining like a clear moss bottomed vernal pool. “Avernus says I should be fine though. He’s fairly certain that it won’t affect the onset of my calling in any way.”

Alistair felt his chest tighten, and he gripped the bedroll on either side of Aoife tightly, fisting it into his hands. He knew why she spared Avernus. Why she fought hard to walk the fine edge of the middle ground. He also knew that he would have made different choices and probably regretted them, so he tried not to begrudge her when her decisions veered so sharply from what his own would have been. His eyes clamped shut again as he tried hard to breathe.

One of her hands slipped up and he felt her calloused palm slide along his jaw. Her nose rubbed against his as she whispered, “I’m fine Alistair.”

It wasn’t a word, the sound that clambered out of his chest, just a ball of need, laced through with a tangle of desperation at the thought of loss. He opened his eyes just enough to see where her lips were before crushing his down on top of them. It was a frenzied thing, the push of his lips against hers, like he was trying to devour her whole. She moaned into the kiss, pulling the tie out before knotting her finger into his now shoulders length hair. Their tongues waged a heady war, until Alistair’s lungs started to burn and he pulled away from Aoife with a gasp.

There were too many clothes, too many layers of cloth separating the two of them for his liking at this point. His hands let go of the bedroll, and swept up under her tunic, pleased to find that she had taken off her breast band. He didn’t think he had the patience to manage the ties and clasps that kept the thing in place.

Her breath hitched and her hands tried to pull his lips against hers again as he ran his calloused thumbs over her nipples. He let her think she’d caught him, and then turn aside at the last minute to roughly suckle on the skin just under her ear. The frustrated growl that rumbled in her throat then changed into a low moan only served to make him more desperate to tear her tunic from her body.

Apparently, Aoife felt the same way, and she shoved his hands out of the way as she leaned up just enough to wiggle the tunic over her head. This time she managed to pull him in for a hasty kiss before tugging on his lower lip and making him groan. He dived against her neck again kissing a hard line along her neck and down to her collarbone, squashing the thought that even though she liked the feel of his lips against her neck, she did not enjoy the resulting marks.

“Alistair,” his name was a whispered and pleading whimper on her lips.

He flashed his best roguish grin, his own breath catching as he saw how she stared at him. Her eyes lidded heavy with lust and looking more like black inky pools rimmed with a green light, rather than their usual flashing emeralds. It still startled him that he could do this to her, make her breath catch and pant, make her body writhe and squirm beneath his hands, make her slick and shuddering until she burst around him. The whole act never ceased to both enthrall and amaze him, though there were still times he wished he had been her first. He dove against her abdomen and nipped at skin just above her right hip, driving away the jealous thought with her startled and breathy gasp.

Working his way back up the right side of her body with his lips, Alistair let his sword arm wander over her breasts, pinching and tweaking them into hard pebbles before replacing his fingers with his mouth.

Her own hands were not idle. They wound in his hair, dug through the skin of his back, and teased around the edge of his ear. They somehow found his own nipples when he decided to run another line of kiss up the other side of her neck. It was like a spark, the way she grazed them lightly with the edge of her nails, and that spark ran straight down him, tightening the pressure around his cock.

He groaned, one hand slipping down along her side, seeking her core, while the other tried to keep him upright as she continued to tease him.

The first time they did this, he’d felt like he’d be all hands and awkward fumbling, which he was, but she somehow managed to make him feel like he wasn’t. Even when he finished and she never did. He had gotten better at knowing her and knowing how to bring her to the edge and then spill her over. Tonight though, so driven with need and fear, he felt almost like he was doing it all wrong again.

All those doubts shattered when she arched up into his palm as he slide his hand under her smallclothes. He might have said something, as he trailed a finger between her folds and found her wet and wanting. He definitely heard her keening whimpers as he swirled his finger around her entrance before dragging it back up and pressing firmly against the little seed of pleasure her folds so expertly hid from him. He knew he felt himself harden further when she returned the favor and pressed her own smaller hands against the bugle that strained against his breeches.

Still, too many clothes.

Alistair almost had enough though that was not bound up in the intensity of his own building climax and ensuring she came to the end of hers to think how much easier this would be if they just always went to bed naked. If he remembered later as he tugged down on her smallclothes, maybe he’d make the suggestion.

She was trying to help, tugging at the laces of his breeches, while her legs kicked away her small once Alistair got them down to about her knees. Oh, but sweet Maker, the way her fingers grazed against him only made him harder, spinning out his patience into a desperately frayed edge. He gathered her hands, just give him some peace, and enough thought to wrest himself out of his breeches and smalls.

Far too many clothes.

Pressing forward again, he climbed between her legs as he kissed her. It was almost as desperate as before, tongues meeting and clashing along teeth and lips. His hands swept over her one at a time, teasing her core and kneading her breasts, while keeping his full weight crushing against her body.

“Alistair,” her voice was thin, reedy with a need in a way that never failed to drive him on, which he did, hilting into her and catching her sharp gasp with a gentler kiss.

He tried to start out slowly, to drag things out longer, to push them over a higher cliff, but the want of loving her, of needing her coupled with the very keen reality of losing her whether to the Blight or the Calling spurred him into a rough tempo. She arched. She whimpered beneath him, trailing her fingers roughly over his skin, as he continued to surge into her. Eventually, her legs wound around his waist, and her hips began meeting his.

The pressure was almost too much and he knew he was close. He had just enough presence of mind to find her seed again, to swirl and press, to flick and pinch until he felt he felt her channel begin to flutter around him. Drawing himself almost completely out, he untangled her legs from around his waist, drew her knees to his chest, and then plunged deeper inside her core. She arched, gasping, eyes pinched tight, and mouth slightly agape. Her channel shuddered around him as he drew almost full out again, threatening to tumble him over his edge. He managed three more thrusts like that before the pressure inside him burst, blurring his vision as he pressed hard against her and spilled his seed.

Only when his vision cleared did he move again, slowly thrusting as he worked his hands over her body until she finally gasped and clenched in hard grasping waves around him and bathed his cock in her own fluids.   

This time he managed to not collapse directly on top of her when his arms finally gave way. Gathering her in his arms, he held her tight against his chest, knowing how much she like to listen to the rapid beat of his heart after they were both spent and sated.

“I love you,” he breathed the words out as he managed to press her against his body.

She clung to him, holding him with same force, “I love you, too.”

For a while they just breathed. Enfolding and entwined in each other’s arms. Alistair almost forgot why there was a knot of worry in his chest.

“We’ve survived this long, Alistair,” she ran the smooth edge of her nails over the muscled plane of his stomach, “I promise you we will make it out the other side.”

Alistair didn’t respond. He couldn’t seem to work his voice around the lump in his throat. There were a thousand things that could go wrong, he knew that. Duncan had certainly told him that before the ill-fated battle at Ostagar. Alistair had chosen to hold on to hope then and had nearly been crushed by despair when that hope turned out to be misplaced. Almost desperately, he wanted to hope now, to find some small comfort in her words, but he couldn't, even knowing that she had already pulled them through impossible odds.

Tugging at the tangle of blankets, he pulled them over the tangle of their bodies, pressing a kiss to her forehead when she looked at him. He couldn’t say anymore than what that kiss did, so he didn't try. But he held her a little tighter, his thumb swirling lazy circles over the top of her shoulder blade until he heard her breathing settled into the languid pace of sleep.

He was never sure how much longer he stared into the grey darkness of the tent, before sleep finally claimed him too.


	7. “Be careful how you bend me, Be careful how you end me, Be careful with me” - Patty Griffin

Aoife tossed her needlework aside.

She did not have the patience for it anyhow. Her mother had taught her, ages ago now, as a way for Aoife to quiet her thoughts, but she had never taken to the art. She had always preferred more physical exertions, such as sparring with her brother Fergus, to give her the mental clarity to see her way through a problem. Unfortunately, swinging anything heavier than a spoon had been denied her for at least a month now. It was dangerous, dancing about, even with dull edge practice blades, now that her center of gravity had changed so drastically. And that change in her mobility was driving her insane, but Wynne had been very clear with Aoife about what could be done at this point. Aoife could walk. She could swim if the weather had been warmer. She could even stretch in the manner that Oriana had shown her once. But she could not ride and she could not fight. She ran laps in the training yard for a while in an attempt to feel like she could still doing something active, but even that had eventually become uncomfortable. And as the list of things Aoife could do grew smaller, the more restless and agitated she became.

It was worse now that Wynne was gone. As much as Aoife was loathed to admit it, the mage had a way about her that was soothing, and she knew just what to say when Aoife was ready to tear out her hair. Petra was not nearly as good at being soothing.

Fergus had been surprised when the red-headed mage had shown up not a day after Wynne left for Denerim. Aoife had not been surprised, her pregnancy was still a chancy, improbable thing. Even though there had been no scares yet or any indication that anything was or would go wrong, Aoife knew Wynne would see to it that the greatest of care taken with both her and the babe.

Rising from her chair, Aoife took care to steady herself. She needed to feel the salt-tinged winds on her cheeks, she needed to move, and she needed to be anywhere other than sitting in her room. Wynne had left over three weeks ago, just at the beginning of Parvulis. If anything was going to come of that fool letter Aoife had written, it would come sometime between now and the beginning of Umbralis, or possibly even Cassus. After all, there was a rapidly narrowing window of time between now and roughly the middle of Frumentum where the roads were not mired by mud, ice, and snow.

She wasn’t sure what she preferred. If Alistair showed up during Cassus, it meant he had traveled during the worst weather of the winter season to see her, but it also risked her being in labor as she was due early on in the month. Anytime before that and he risked being trapped in Highever until the last of the winter storms broke just before the high holiday of Wintersend.

Aoife swirled a heavy winter cloak around her shoulders. Hoping that the crisp late autumn air would chase away her worries and doubts, she picked her way slowly through the halls of the new keep.

Castle Cousland had stood for over eight hundred years, but in all that time it had remained little more than a high-walled fortress. Now, under Fergus’ hand, it was transforming into an impenetrable stronghold. She could not fault Fergus’ determination to not just rebuild but improve fortifications, the castle had been left little more than a burned-out shell, but it meant they would be tripping over stone masons, woodworkers, and other laborers for months to come.

She made had almost made it to the old atrium without tripping over a workman when someone rounded the corner and nearly knocked her over.

“Dear Maker, watch where you are going!” Aoife snapped, stopping herself just shy of stumbling over by bracing her sword-arm against the rough stone wall.

“Lady Cousland, I am so sorry,” a broad hand slipped behind Aoife’s back along her waist while another steadier her further by catching her left hand. “The servants told me you were still in your room, so I assumed that was where I’d find you. I should have been paying more attention.”

Aoife looked up, startled by the familiar touch. It tugged on memories she would rather she had forgotten.

Seneschal Drustan’s dark blue eyes looked down at her full of worried concern. She stood up straighter, resisting the urge to shrug away from him and snarl like a petulant child. Instead she settled for a pointed look from his hands and back to his face, and a mild haughtiness to her tone, “Seneschal Drustan. Shouldn’t you be out on the hunt with my brother?”

“I wish,” Drustan muttered and misinterpreting her look, “Oh, I mean, that is, my Lady, the Teyrn thought I should stay behind and ensure your needs were seen to.”

“And do you think I am not capable of seeing to my own needs?” Aoife felt a small sly tug of a smile pull at the corner of lips as she once again inclined her head toward his encircling grasp.

“Ah,” the Seneschal’s cheeks turned a bright shade of red as he quickly snatched his hands back to his sides. “Of course not my Lady, but the Teyrn was quite insistent.”

Aoife sighed, rubbing absently at the top of her womb, “I am well aware of how my brother thinks I am made out spun sugar, Ser.”

“I think he just worries, Lady Cousland, given the circumstances,” Aoife watched Drustan run his fingers nervously through his charcoal black hair before settling them respectfully behind his back. His face was a bit weathered and clean shaven, but Aoife suspected that he could not be much older than her brother.

“Oh?” Aoife crossed her arms over her chest, noticing how Drustan was pointedly looking everywhere but at her now, “And just what are those circumstances, Ser Drustan?”

“I only meant that given what happened to your house last year...” the young Seneschal shifted on his heels as his voice petered out. His sword-arm ran back through his hair again and his shoulders slumped as he sighed, “Well, begging your pardon, my Lady, but your brother did inform me of some of the details of your situation. It was actually why I was coming to find you.”

Aoife felt as if her breath had caught in her throat and everything had gone suddenly quiet. There was a tightness that pulled across her belly, it seemed to pull her stretched skin even tighter, and reminded her vaguely of the cramping she would endure during her moon-bloods. She rubbed her womb again hoping to make the sensation pass.

“Are you alright, your ladyship?” Drustan’s voice cut through the sensations of her body like ice. “Should I send for the healer?”

“No, I’m fine,” she smiled at Drustan, a small wan thing, and hoped it would be enough to settle his nerves as the tightness that had pulled across her abdomen dissipated. “Now, why did you need to find me?”

Drustan’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, before his face became a mask of unreadable formality, “Well, I had a message this morning that the Teyrn was planning on spending another day or two on the hunt.”

“That is not exactly a pressing matter,” Aoife resisted the urge to roll her eyes, though she could not help the Morrigan-like impatience that colored her tone, “nor does it really merit almost knocking me over just to tell me about it.”

“Ha, ah,” the Seneschal's nervous laugh shattered the serious front he was trying to take with her, and his arms went across his chest as if he was trying hard not to let his hands run through his hair again. “Well, you see your ladyship, I’ve just received word that the King has been seen on the Coastwards Road. He’ll be here about mid-afternoon, and the Teyrn was most insistent that the King never be allowed in the castle or anywhere near your ladyship unless he was here to defend your honor. Even if I were to send a runner out to find the Teyrn, it is likely that he would be back before the morning.”

There were a thousand curses that blossomed on Aoife’s tongue, a thousand worries that spun out in her head, but there was also anger. At her brother for thinking she could not fight her own battles, at Alistair for not giving her the opportunity to refuse a royal visit, and at herself for letting Wynne convince her to finally tell Alistair. She took a deep breath, not wanting to vent her anger on Ser Drustan. It was not his fault after all.

“See that Cook knows we will have guests for dinner and possibly tea,” Aoife paused, hoping that she wasn’t wincing as her belly tightened again. “Then have the servants begin airing out the guest chambers.”

“But the Teyrn, should we not send word?”

Aoife stopped rubbing her womb, stood ramrod straight, and did her best to convey her displeasure, “We cannot put off the King should he choose to beg hospitality, Seneschal Drustan. And I don’t need my brother here, as he is more likely to start some fool war with the King than not.”

Worry knotted the Seneschal’s brow and pulled the younger man’s face into a caricature of a much older man, “Please my Lady, the Teyrn will have my hide if I do not send him word.”

“Fine,” Aoife let go of the word in a long sigh, which was as much out of her dwindling patience with Ser Drustan as it was a reaction to the release she felt in her belly. “If you must send word to Fergus then you may do so, but you will wait until morning. I won’t have him tearing down those winding and tree tangled hunter’s trails at night.”

“Yes, Lady Cousland,” Drustan bowed, his sword arm fisted over his heart.

“Now, I suggest you tell Cook, if you wait much longer she might just decide to serve you for dinner as punishment for not giving her enough warning.” That earned Aoife a broad smile from the Seneschal, and she found herself smiling back.

“Can I do anything for you before I go, my Lady?”

Aoife was about to answer, when she felt another cramping tightness across her midsection. It was not any stronger than the last, but it was the third such sensation in as many moments.

“My Lady?”

Pinching her eyes shut, Aoife remembered to breathe. Before she left, Wynne had warned her that she might start to feel some contractions here and there but they would be fleeting, irregular things. The sensations Aoife had felt since Ser Drustan had nearly knocked her over where not well defined or even painful, but they seemed to be putting pressure on her womb at regular intervals. She opened her eyes again, looking directly at her brother’s Seneschal, “I think I may need some help getting back to my chambers, and then I will need you to get Petra for me.”

“Of course Lady Cousland,” Drustan’s face broke out with worry, and Aoife knew that the runner he would send to find her brother, if he waited that long, would contain more than the news that the King had come to the castle. She took her head slightly, taking Drustan’s arm, and letting him lead her slowly back to her room.

She sat slowly back down on her bed, once the Seneschal left, unsure of what was going on within her body. As they had walked back through the keep, Aoife was sure she felt her womb tighten at least two more times. She had a vague idea of pregnancy entailed, she had seen Oriana go through it with Oren after all, never mind the fact that Wynne had given her some rather graphic descriptions of some of the changes her body would endure, but knowing something and experiencing it firsthand were two entirely different things. Not for the first time, Aoife wished that Morrigan had not decided to leave after the Battle of Denerim; at least they could be going through this together. She missed the wilder witch’s sharp tongue and carefully guarded vulnerability. Though they had rarely agreed on how to best stop the Blight or the hundred other decisions Aoife had made, she valued Morrigan’s unforgiving bluntness.

She could almost hear the wilder witch chiding her now, demanding to know why Aoife was throwing open the gates of her home for a man who had walked away from her without looking back. But the thought scattered with another contraction of her womb. Thankfully, she only had to worry herself through two more such sensations before Petra swept into Aoife’s chambers.  

The mage bobbed her head, “Your ladyship, Ser Drustan is under the impression that you are experiencing some sort of pain.”

Aoife leaned back against her headboard and rolled her eyes, “No, it’s more like cramping; a tightness that pulls at my womb, but it is not particularly painful.”

Something, perhaps worry or a touch of concern, overshadowed Petra’s face as she walked over to Aoife and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her dimly glowing hands over Aoife’s womb, “How often has this been happening, my lady?”

“Not that long ago, I only sent Ser Drustan to find you because the feeling seem to be happening at regular intervals.”

Petra merely nodded in response to Aoife’s reply. She knew the mage was trying to concentrate on what she was doing, but Aoife was becoming increasingly restless as the moments slipped by and the red haired mage continued to say nothing. Finally, she could take no more, "Well? IS everything alright?”

The young mage smiled, the light went out from her hand as she turned to face Aoife, “Yes your ladyship. Everything is fine.”

Aoife bit the corner of her mouth, wondering now what Wynne had told the mage when before she left for Denerim. It was probably more than Aoife would have liked the girl to know. “Isn’t it a bit early for this to be happening?”

“A little,” Petra cocked her head thoughtfully, as she folded her hands in her lap, “but I think that if we are careful you and the baby should be fine. Unfortunately, that means bed rest from now on.”

“Bed rest?” Aoife watched as Petra nodded.

“For the next two months?” she could not help the strident rise of her voice as she stared at the mage. The thought of being stuck in the same room for that long had her in a near panic, it would be bad enough meeting Alistair again, but having to do so while confined to her bed and then having to stay there. She shuddered.

“No, my lady,” Petra’s smile was gentle as she reached out and took one of Aoife’s hands in hers, “but at least for another three to four weeks. We don’t want the babe to come too early. Now shall I send for the maid to draw you a bath or would you prefer to beat me at Wicked Graces again?”

“Could you see that I slept, Petra? The King is possibly arriving in four hours or so, and all the servants rushing about. I just need some quiet,” Aoife hated how desperate her voice sounded in her ears, but she couldn’t see herself passing the time play cards with the mage. With nothing left to her but confinement, all she wanted to do was sleep.

“Of course my lady,” Petra swiped her fingers over Aoife forehead, grazing it temple to temple with a sleep spell. “I will make sure no one, not even the King disturbs you until you are ready.”

“Thank you, Petra,” Aoife murmured as the spell dragged her blissfully into the Fade.


	8. Recollection

Morrigan looked up just as Aoife got to her fire. It didn’t seem to matter how quietly she walked or how carefully she stepped, the wilder witch always seemed to know when Aoife was getting close. Aoife wondered if she should set a challenge for herself, Leliana, and Zevran to find out which of the three of them could get the closest to Morrigan before she noticed them, but she quickly discarded that as a bad idea.

“May I sit?” Aoife gestured to the ground beside the wilder witch.

“You may,” Morrigan arched a thin brow, her smile tugging her lips between a sharp sneer and something more genial, “though in truth I am surprised you are not spending time with Alistair. The two of you have been quite...enthusiastic… of late.”

Aoife took a deep breath as she settled herself on the ground next to Morrigan and hoped she was not blushing over much, “Yes, well, I apparently scared him a bit back at Soldier’s Peak and now I think he thinks I might just...I don’t know...disappear or evaporate or something equally ridiculous.”

“Tis not surprising that Alistair thinks so, he is not the brightest of men,” Morrigan’s golden toned hazel eyes sparkled with a touch of malice in the firelight.

“Morrigan please,” Aoife ran her fingers over her forehead, “could you possibly go five minutes without insulting Alistair?”

“I will try,” the witch’s lips curved into a hard smile, “but I make no promises.”

“Thank you,” Aoife tugged her cloak around her shoulders, as they got closer to the snow line of the Frostback Mountains the air had gotten decidedly colder, despite the weather in valley below being well on its way towards spring. Tomorrow they would reach the cobbled together market shanty town that hung just outside the doors of Orzammar like an engorged tick. Most of her group was questioning her sanity, but the dwarves, like the mages and elves before them, had an obligation to the Wardens, and Aoife would be damned first before she let any of them off the hook. Even if she had her own reservations about heading underground, dwarven politics, after all, could put those of Orlais to shame. Aoife shook her head, it did no good to dwell on the path ahead when she had so little intelligence to go on. Instead she looked inquisitively at Morrigan, “So, how are you getting on with your mother’s grimoire now that you have the right one?”

“Tis slow work.” Morrigan inclined her head slightly, a determined gleam glinting in the coldness of her stare. “My mother was nothing if not secretive, but I think I have managed to tease out the trick to the cipher.”

“You know she wanted me to lie to you, tell you she was dead and then let her go.”

“I…uh...,” Morrigan stammered, and for the briefest moment the wilder witch looked like some feral and caged thing, but the moment passed quickly, “I am not surprised. It does sound like something my mother would do.”

Aoife caught Morrigan’s gaze and held it for as long as the witch dared to look, “I keep my promises, Morrigan; no offer she could have made me would have changed that.”

Morrigan looked away, staring off into the fire. They sat there for a while, neither of them speaking. Aoife knew well enough than to press Morrigan while she wrangled with what the witch considered to be weak and illusory emotions.

After a while, Morrigan broke the silence, “Do you need more potions?”

Chuckling softly, Aoife shook her head, “No, and I mean no offense by this, but I think I’m done drinking things with ingredients I can’t identify for a while. My courses were never regular before the Joining, and they have gotten more erratic since. I think I will leave it in the hands of the Maker.

Morrigan gave a loud snort.

“Chance then?”

“T’would be the more likely thing, but I do not wish to argue the point at this juncture.”

“Then I will refrain from making comments about small mercies,” Aoife felt the laughter tugging at the corners of her mouth, begging to be released. When Morrigan smiled back her, Aoife let go, chuckling long and loud, nearly doubling over when she heard Morrigan’s laugh join hers.

“You are certain though, about the potions?”

“Yes,” Aoife gasped, wiping tears from the corner of her eyes, “for now at least. That potion you brew for me has a similar consistency as the potion from Soldier’s Peak. I am afraid I would not be able to stomach it right now.”

“Well,” Morrigan readjusted her own cloak, fidgeting with the hem as she tugged it back over her lap, “it would still be prudent of you to be careful. I may not know much about human society, but I know that carrying the child of a King out of wedlock is generally frowned upon.”

“We don’t know yet that Alistair will be King, Morrigan.”

“Truly?” the witch’s eye arched, and she gazed piercingly at Aoife, “It seemed to me that was what you agreed to back at Redcliffe.”

“Calling the Landsmeet is the only way to settle this without unnecessarily depleting our forces, but whether Alistair becomes King,” Aoife shrugged, “well it is an entirely different matter.”

“In what way, pray tell. The way the Arl described it, Alistair has the best claim on the throne.”

“He does, but Anora has been essentially ruling the kingdom for the last five years. I know many nobles who would allow her to stay queen based on that alone.”

Morrigan’s face repainted with a dark sneer, “Alistair will be thrilled to know you are not planning to put him on the throne.”

Aoife shook her head. Both Morrigan and Alistair had been with her the longest and it never failed to amuse Aoife how the pair continued to snipe at each other after all that time, even when the other was not even within ear shot. “Oh, I didn’t say that Morrigan. Despite what you think of him, Alistair does have a good head on his shoulders, and he has grown up some since that horrible debacle with his sister. The fact of the matter is I don’t know Anora, and I have no idea how much she is entangled in her father’s ploys. It may be that she knows nothing and is simply a pawn in Loghain’s plans. I can’t be expected to make a move without seeing all the pieces on the board, now can I?”

“That does sound sensible I suppose,” Morrigan looked at her thoughtfully and then leaned slightly aside, looking off in the direction of the main camp. “It would seem that Alistair is growing impatient with our conversation.”

Aoife looked over her shoulder. Alistair was standing by their tent, his face hung over with shadows, but even with the fire at his back Aoife knew he was scowling. She let a small sigh escape her lips, barely enough breath to steam upon the cold air, “Hmm, goodnight Morrigan.”

The wilder witch inclined her head, “Grey Warden.”

Standing, Aoife dusted away the dirt and small pebbles that clung to the back of her cloak. When she had finished, she looked back at Alistair. He was still standing next to the tent, his back to the fire. She could just make out by its light that he wasn’t wearing any armor under his thick wool cloak as it was not distorted enough across his shoulders. Tipping her head towards Sten, she knew Alistair was rolling his eyes at her just by the slant of his head. But after the Qunari had questioned her decisions in Haven, she needed to talk to Sten before they entered the Dwarven Kingdom. She shrugged as she began walking towards Sten, knowing when Morrigan practically cackled behind her that Alistair must have stormed into their tent, because he was no longer standing beside it when she looked back. Biting the inside of her lip, she resisted a sigh heavy with frustration and focused on the task at hand.

It would be another hour before she joined him in their tent, her hands and face slightly numb from standing so long out in the cold. The tent was warmer than the air outside. They had bought brazier and extra blankets in the small nameless hamlet at the foot Gherlen’s Pass, but the cold still crept in, stealing with nimble thieving fingers through every loose seam to steal warmth from her bones. The winds off the Waking Sea could be cruel, dank, and numbing. They could batter the careless with the forceful sting of driving rains and ice, but they were nothing compared sharp bladed wind of the Frostback Mountains, which fleeced heat from one’s body as eagerly as a cutpurse lined his pockets with another’s coin.

Blowing on her cold fingers, she sat gingerly on the edge of the bed roll. Alistair had stirred when she pulled back the canvas and dove quietly into the warmth of the tent, but it seemed that he had fallen asleep.

 _Bryd one brere, brid, brid one brere, Kynd is come of love, love to crave_ , Aoife hummed softly to herself, willing her stiff but warming fingers to work off her equally stiff and cold leather boots. Thankful, she had the sense to replace her leathers for a warmer wool tunic and fur-lined breaches before speaking to Morrigan and Sten. She didn’t think she had the patience to tug off cold armor before diving under the blankets. _Blythful bryd, on me thu rewe, Or greyth, lef, greith thu me my grave_.  

“Are you going to sit there and hum all night, or are you going to come to bed?” Alistair’s voice grumbled sleepily.

Aoife flicked her cloak over the top of their cocoon of blankets and furs, before wiggling into them and facing Alistair, “And here I thought you liked my humming.”

“I do,” he peered at her from half open eyes, while his hands found hers. His eyes snapped opened, “Dear Maker, your hands are like ice.”

She was going to make some smart remark about her feet, when he pull her fingertips up to his lips and kiss them lightly before rubbing her hands over with his own. A warmth spread over her that had nothing to do with being fully clothed and buried under a pile of wool and fur.

“So do you think Sten will be a problem again?” his hands had stopped working heat back into hers and had slipped down to her elbows, drawing her against his chest. “Grarr, woman could you not have at least stood by the fire?”

Chuckling, she resisted the urge to tease a patch of Alistair’s bare skin with her still rather icy nose, “To answer your first question no, I don’t. Something about finding his sword has somehow endeared me to him or at least I have earned his respect. And yes, I stood as close to the fire as I could without actually standing in it.”

“Good,” he yawned the word sleepily, “I mean about Sten that is, not so good about how cold you are.”

Aoife let her brows arch pointedly at Alistair, “You’re not the least bit curious about my conversation with Morrigan?”

“Nope,” the word shot out of Alistair’s mouth with a pop as the tips of his ears turned red.

“Liar.”

“Blast it,” he muttered, “alright I’m curious, I’m practically seething with curiosity, but I was trying to be gentlemanly and let you tell me about it if it was something important.”

Aoife reached up with her hand and ran it along his jaw, “I’m sorry I scared you Alistair.”

“And I’m sorry for yelling at you about it,” Alistair puffed air out his lungs, before snuggling his forehead against Aoife’s and his eye narrowing to drowsy slits, “Please tell me you were not talking about that to Morrigan. I can just imagine the snide looks she’ll be giving me now.”

She smiled wickedly, she couldn’t help it, “It only came up because she commented on how active we’ve been lately.”

“Active? What do you mean active?” Alistair pulled back from her a bit, confusion skewing his features until Aoife licked her bottom lip slowly. A blush spread across his cheeks as he stammered, “Oh… that kind of active...great, now I’m certain to get that look from her tomorrow.”

Pressing into him, she caught his lips in a soft kiss, pulling away just before it became something demanding and whispered, “We should get some sleep.”

“Sleep she says, as if I can sleep now,” Alistair groaned. ”Just promise me that we’ll stop at an inn on our way back to Redcliffe this time.”

“Of course,” she felt her grin wide with mirth again, “my prince.”

“Saucy, incorrigible minx,” he grumbled, eyes slipping closed again. “I’m never going to get to sleep now.”

Giggling, she turned over. Fitting herself into the curve of Alistair's well muscled body, Aoife let the warmth radiating from him work the remaining chill out of her muscles as the sound of his breathing began lulling her to sleep. Tomorrow, she would worry about what challenges Orzammar would present. Tonight, she just wanted to slip peacefully into sleep knowing she was loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bryd one brere  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGxZrhEHs3E


	9. "But in order to get to the heart, I think sometimes you'll have to cut through" - Florence + the Machine

_**To his Majesty King Alistair Theirin,**  _

 

“Whoa, Brys,” Alistair reigned in on his gelding, bringing it to a halt along the hard packed road.

The black coated beast was a gift from Arl Wulff of Western Hills and thankfully came already named. Otherwise, Alistair might have called the animal Spot or Star for the white slash across its broad forehead.

As a stable boy in Arl Eamon’s household, Alistair knew a fine, well-bred horse when he saw one and the horse Arl Wulff had gifted him was certainly of that quality. A reliable, even gaited, and swift animal, fully capable of picking its way along roads that were only a little bit better than game trails. But it was only as a Templar that Alistair had been trained to ride, and given the choice between it and walking, he would have preferred the latter. But it would have taken him twice the amount of time to make the journey from Denerim to Highever. He could have sailed. It certainly would have been faster, but the very idea of being on a boat surrounded by all that water made him feel ill. He could just barely make it across Lake Calenhad without retching.

 

_**Wynne believes I should tell you this, but I am still not sure you deserve to know. Nothing you have done since the Landsmeet has at all proven to me that you are worthy of this information. But I am digressing and Wynne is at my back**_ tutting _ **me all the while. So I will tell you**_.

 

Looking back over his shoulder, Alistair watched the glint of steel approaching in the afternoon light. Eamon had sent him with a full company of knights, whose pace was hampered by their heavy armor and slower mounts. He had indulged the Arl’s need to protect the new King, despite the fact that Alistair had been less protected and in more danger during the Fifth Blight and had still managed to survive.

He grimaced at that stray thought, absently patting the neck of his mount as he waited for his retinue to catch up to him. It implied that he had some hand in keeping himself alive, but he knew who had really kept their group intact and hale.

Looking down the road toward their ultimate destination, Alistair waited as patiently as possible for the rest of his party to catch up to him. The journey along the North Road had already taken longer than Alistair would have liked.  

Castle Cousland sat just within reach and perched at the top of a steep, though thankfully paved, grade. From a what he wagered to be his roughly siege distance from the seat of the Teyrn of Highever, Alistair could not make out any obvious damage to the structure of the castle, save some oddly placed shadows on the stones of the curtain wall. But from its place atop the escarpment, he knew instantly why the late Rendon Howe had needed the chaos of an impending Blight to attempt to wipe out the Couslands. He wagered it would have been less of a massacre for the Couslands had the former Arl tried a more direct confrontation.

 

_**I had not caught any sickness that morning you found me and threatened to drag me to see Wynne. I was with child. Congratulations, I suppose? I am no maid and I did not think I was star-struck, yet here we are with another royal bastard on the way.**  _

 

Alistair breathed deeply, letting out the air in a long gust that chilled and smoked on the cold air. He was keenly aware of how much he wanted to urge his horse down the road, leaving his guards to scramble in his wake, but he had already left them in his dust one too many times. The commander of his guard was not a pleased man and had insisted on a formal approach once they were in sight of the castle.

The small and neatly set ears on his mount prick up, as if sensing its rider’s impatience. He gave the beast another calming rub along its wispy mane.

 

**_There, I have said it. I do hope I did not use too many words for you, your Majesty. Though I suppose you have advisors for that now, don’t you?_**

 

“A sovereign for your thoughts, your Majesty?”

After so much time with only the sounds of distant wildlife and horses intruding on him, Alistair had almost forgotten that he had company.

“Ha. I’m not sure they are worth that much, Teagan.” Alistair continued to stare off towards the castle. At first, Eamon had insisted on coming with Alistair to protect what he deemed the ‘interests of the Crown.’ But after a rather heated argument, both Alistair and the Arl agreed that it might be better if the Bann of Rainesfere was asked to attend the King. So a swift courier was sent and Teagan joined his retinue where the North Road meet the Coastwards Road.

Teagan’s dappled grey nudged forward, bring the Bann in line with Alistair and drawing his attention momentarily away from the castle in the distance. The Bann cocked his head to the side, his eyes glazed with a distance haze, “Do you know what I regret most about my life, Alistair?”

“Is this a trick question?” Alistair knew he was letting his surprise at Teagan’s question tug his face into a confused mix of an arched brow and an askew grin.

Teagan smiled and with a vague shake of his head gestured down the road, “You stare at that castle wondering if this is all worth it. Speaking as someone who is still a bachelor and a good fifteen years your senior, I can tell you that no matter what happens it most certainly is. Regret is hard and heavy thing to live with, Alistair, and I should know, I’ve lived with mine for almost as long as you have been alive.”

Shifting in his saddle enough to ease some of the tension in his legs from being so long astride, Alistair cast his gaze back up the road ahead of him, “She didn’t ask me to come, Teagan. What if I just make everything worse?”

“You would have ended up here eventually, I think,” Teagan’s voice was full of a gentle, knowing insistence.

“I’m…,” Alistair kept his eyes focused on the road as if the dull hard surface would somehow prevent him from overwhelming him. “I am not so sure about that, Teagan. After all, I had convinced myself I was doing the right thing by letting her go.”

“And yet you have systematically thwarted all of my brother’s attempts to marry you off, your Majesty,” the Bann of Rainesfere chuckled, and the mirth carried warmly through his words. Alistair could hear him shift in his saddle and then his somewhat Uncle spoke once more, “Tell me something Alistair, what would you be doing if that letter had told you she was getting married?”

Alistair tightened his grip on his reins as the thought of her marrying someone else had his blood nearly seething. Before he got her letter, he knew it was possible that she might marry. Maker’s breath, she had even told him once that before Blight her parents had been not so subtly trying to get her to marry and had even floated the idea going to Orlais or the Free Marches to find a match for her. But for as long as he had no word of an impending marriage, he had hoped. To have that finally crushed? Alistair was at a loss for deciding which was worse, the situation he was in or the hypothetical one raised by Teagan’s question.

 

**_I have requested a leave of absence  from my position as Commander of the Grey until after the child is born so I suspect that you will be receiving a courier shortly from the First Warden informing you of who will be taking my place in Amaranthine._**

 

The sound of his knights finally catching up to him set a clamor of armor and clatter of horse hooves ringing through his head. He looked over his shoulder at his commander, a swarthy man with a scrubby goatee and a scar that ran from his left cheek and across the bridge of his crooked nose. Oddly enough, Commander Drummond reminded Alistair of Murdock, mayor of the village of Redcliffe, though as far as he was aware the two men were not related. It probably had something to do with the voice. “Well, Commander Drummond, shall we begin our final assault?”

“Your Majesty,” the Commander bowed his head at Alistair and then began barking gravelly orders at the knights to form up around the King.

Alistair let the noise roll over him, as he spurred Brys into an agonizingly slow walk. For him, the ride up to the castle’s gatehouse seemed to take the better part of an eternity. Yet the reality was that it was merely a handful of moments before Alistair and his knights were spilling through the portcullis and into a small courtyard.

Swarmed by servants and stable boys, Alistair almost did not notice the tall black haired man that stood just in front of a secondary gate. But his eyes did catch on the red haired mage standing next to the scowling dark haired man. Her face reminded Alistair of someone he had met during the Blight, but the thought scattered as a mousey elf appeared in front of him bearing tankards steaming with the heavily spiced scent of mulled wine. He accepted a mug from the servant and let the heat from the drink warm his chilled fingers. Taking a small sip so as not to burn his tongue, Alistair waited for someone from the Teyrn's household to make the first move.

 

**_I am not sure there is anything more to say._**

**_Respectfully,_ **

**_~~Lady Aoife Cousland, Hero of Ferelden, and Commander of the Grey_**

 

“Your Majesty,” drawled the dark haired man, who glared at him with glacial eyes that practically radiated cold, “I am Ser Drustan, Seneschal of the castle. I am afraid that the Teyrn is out hunting and not expected back until morning. I have been instructed by Lady Cousland to allow you into the hall, should you beg hospitality, your Majesty.”

Alistair felt his heart lurch, it was too thin a thing to hang his hopes on, but he caught on to it anyway “I do.”

The Seneschal gritted his teeth, “Then shall I show your Majesty into the great hall? The servants will see to any luggage, and your guardsmen can make use of the barracks. Or, if your Majesty prefers, I can show you to your room if you wish to rest and refresh yourself before dinner?”

Despite the protest of his muscles, Alistair shook his head, “The great hall will be fine, Ser Drustan.”

Falling in step behind the stiff and stony Seneschal, Alistair let his gaze fall on the red haired mage beside him. She was short, pale skinned, and green eyed, nothing overly remarkable. Yet there was something familiar about her.

“Was the ride from Denerim difficult, your Majesty?” It was her voice that finally sparked Alistair’s memories.

“Not overly,” he shrugged. “It’s Petra isn’t it? One of the Circle of Magi?”

“I’m surprised your Majesty remembers, it’s been nearly a year since you rescued the Tower from its fate.”

“I think you’d find that there are few things I forget about my time ending the Blight.”

There was a loud scoff ahead. Alistair looked up in time to catch the Seneschal glaring hard at him, “Is there something you would like to say, Ser Drustan?”

“Oh no your Majesty, unlike your esteemed self, I spent the fifth Blight trying to keep panic from reigning here in Highever. Nothing that I could offer to the conversation could possibly compare to what your Majesty might say,” the Seneschal stopped, opened a iron banded door, and gestured sneeringly into the room it revealed. “The Great Hall, your Majesty?”

Alistair twisted his head slightly, stopping just shy of popping the joints in his neck. He knew that he would not be a welcome guest at Castle Cousland, but he would be damned before he let this Ser Drustan bait him into breaking the bonds of hospitality.

A hand came down and squeezed Alistair’s shoulder, “I think I speak for both his Majesty and myself, when I say that you have the crown’s gratitude. Highever has ever been loyal to the line of Calenhad. I am sure your effort helped to greatly mitigate the damage caused by Rendon Howe.”

With the barest nod of his head, Alistair gave the Seneschal a thin lipped smile before turning his attention back to Petra. The mage had moved into the hall, and was standing by the cavernous fireplace warming her hands. He breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed that Teagan had waylaid the imperious Ser Drustan at the door.

“So why is a mage of the Circle here in Highever?” he tried to keep his curiosity from coloring his voice over much, but he knew he had failed when the red-haired mage looked up from her fingers and gave him a wry smile.

“I’m here attending Lady Cousland, your Majesty. I thought that would have been obvious,” she held up her hand just as Alistair tried to speak,  “And before your Majesty asks, she is resting. I doubt she will be down before dinner, if she is down at all.”

Alistair felt his chest tighten. He knew Wynne had been Highever, but since she had left to return to the Kinloch Hold he had assumed that there was no reason for worry beyond whether Aoife would even speak to him.“Is she alright?”

“That depends on what your Majesty considers alright,” Petra folded her arms over her chest and shrugged, “She is healthy after a fashion, and the babe is doing well. Right now I am simply hoping your arrival does not send her off into early labor.”

The room seemed to narrow to contain only Alistair and the mage, and he could hear his voice crack as he asked, “Is that likely?”

“It’s possible, your Majesty,” the mage’s smile warmed, “But, I think we can manage to keep both her and babe safe if we are careful.”


	10. “I don't know how to let you go, Every moment marked, With apparitions of your soul” - Sarah McLachlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I imply some things that may trigger some readers. You have been warned.

Aoife’s dreams were patterned with tortuous precision, constructed by some unknown spirit or demon to inflict the most pain. Or at least that is what she had come to believe after months of living with them.

Sometimes they were rooted in peace: days on the shore walking the coarse sandy beaches with her nephew as they hunted for tide pools, or evenings tucked into her grandfather’s study and listening to her father read. Sometimes they began with more spirit: afternoons in the lower bailey reminding her brother that even without a shield she could still best him, or mid-morning rides winding through the dense oak forests of the Coastlands.

It was rare for them to begin with agony. Oren’s limp and lifeless body, rent open across the abdomen and neck. Oriana lying glass eyed and staring, her night clothes in tatters and stained vermillion with bright heart’s blood. Her father’s seeping wound, dripping blood over his fingers and into the growing pool beneath his left hip. Her mother’s eyes, glazed with unshed tears but hard as greenstone, as she told Aoife to leave her behind.

On very rare occasions, she would dream of things truly nightmarish. The Broodmother featured heavily in such dreams. But sometimes all it took was a determined Emissary and a handful of genlocks. Those visions had Aoife waking in Fergus’ or Wynne’s arms, tear-streaked and screaming until their voices were able to penetrate and replace Hespith’s eerie chant.

It was worse if the dreams twisted and folded around her memories to include a solitary figure walking determinedly away from her as she was overwhelmed by Darkspawn or more sporadically Howe’s men. When that happened, she woke with an inconsolable grief that wracked her body until someone managed to get a sleeping draught past her lips

Even when sleep came spelled upon her, Aoife’s dreams were still predictable. They always began with the knowledge she was loved. They always ended with her bereft and broken.

Aoife tightened her grip on the pillow she clutched as consciousness slowly dragged her slowly out of the Fade. There had been no agony or despair riddled dream to chase her from the Fade today. Still, she had long forgotten what is was like to wake up without having to wipe tears from her cheek or how it felt to be rested, instead of vacant and wrung out. There was a point in between the madness of raising an army to replace the one lost at Ostagar and the death of the Archdemon where her dreams were less haunted. But it was a fleeting moment that she was desperately trying to forget.

When she was awake, she could marshal herself into a semblance of the blithe Teyrn’s daughter that she vaguely remembered. She could tease the new knights, cajole the new cook into slipping her an extra iced bun, and make sure the new servants were getting on with their duties. But for all the mirth she expressed, she never felt it reach her eyes, and her cheeks never ached with smiling or laughter. If she needed to, she could be the fierce, skillful tactician and diplomat that everyone expected of the Hero of Ferelden. But both the hero and the daughter, however, were mere masks now, carefully carved and sculpted to hide the emptiness that had been the one constant in her life since the Landsmeet, aside from the babe growing in her womb.  

Keeping her eyes shut for a little longer and almost wishing she could clutch the last dregs of sleep and force them to drag her back down, she let the ambient sounds of the castle sweep over her. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to hear when she woke. Arguing, perhaps? Or even the distant clatter of steel? Instead, she was greeted with the familiar sounds of a well built fire, and the occasional scuffling clatter of a passing servant. She hazarded a brief flutter of her eyes, and the shadows on the walls told her that she had slept long enough for dusk to overtake the castle. More than enough time for the King to arrive at the castle.

Aoife was never sure how long she slept until she opened her eyes. Sometimes it was only an hour, sometimes she’d sleep most of the day away. Wynne had been so confounded by Aoife’s unpredictable response to a simple sleep spell that she had stopped casting them, preferring to administer a simple draught whenever Aoife was desperate for sleep.

_Andraste_ preserve _me, I don’t know if I can do this_ , Aoife clutched harder on the pillow she was holding and pinching her eyes closed again.

It would be an easy thing to use Petra’s declaration of bed rest as a shield against the King. But it left her with an unknown piece hovering at the edges of her board. It also left her at a loss for what stakes were being played for: Her heart? Her child? Both? The fact that her letter had dragged the King out of Denerim meant that all possibilities were at play.

Fergus, Petra, and even Ser Drustan were known players. Aoife could anticipate the way they would move and how they would respond to her plays. The King and whatever advisors he had brought, if he had brought one at all, were unknown factors and the King was the chanciest piece. Aoife had no idea what he would do now that he knew her secret. It was part of the reason she had not told him for so long.

Eamon would probably insist on the child being acknowledged. After all, if the events of the past year had proven anything it was that any heir was better than no heir. But whether the Arl of Redcliffe would insist that the King marry Aoife was up for debate as she suspected that the Arl was largely responsible for convincing the King to end his relationship with her in the first place. She had not been lying when she told both Fergus and Morrigan that she would not marry the King just to secure a future for their child. Before the Blight, her pride had seen her give up her maidenhead to Dairren so that she could avoid her father’s plans to see her married to an Orlesian. A duty she would have acquiesced to if her father had done more than suggest the possibility. Now her pride refused the idea of a marriage of convenience, whatever the reason. But that also meant she needed to see all the pieces on the board before she made a move.

Despite how much they would like to avoid it, a confrontation with the King was unavoidable now.

“Ghee-ghee," a sleepy whimper of a whine told her that Pook had managed to torment one of the servants to let him into his mistress’ room. Then the sleepy whine turned into a rumbling groan, and Aoife stiffened at a sound Pook only uttered when he was being pet.

“Who’s a good puppy?” Aoife held her breath, trying not to picture the face that went with the exaggeratedly playful voice. “You don’t believe she’s still asleep, do you Pook?”

Pook let out a loud grumping snort.

“Neither do I, should we see if she wants some dinner?”

Her warhound let out an assertive bark.

Aoife let out the breath she’d been holding. For once she was glad that she had laid down fully dressed, at least she did not have to worry about whether her chemise had slipped as she rolled slowly over. She bit sharply down on her tongue, not wanting to comment on his shorn hair as she watched him continue to kneel next to Pook and rub her traitorous mabari’s belly. Sighing, she finally settled on something to say, “Your Majesty, what are you doing here?”

His eyes flashed up and caught hers, while Pook whimpered at the loss of Alistair’s attention, “I thought I would come see you. And it’s still Alistair, Aoife. You of all people have the most right to call me by my given name and not my title.”

Shifting back towards the carved headboard so that she sat upright, Aoife shook her head making sure lacerate his title, “Why? I didn’t exactly ask you to come, your Majesty.”

“Oh I don’t know,” his smile was aslant, making him look as knavish as he was ever able to muster in the time she had know him, but his eyes lacked their usual mirth. He gave Pook one last rough rub, before standing, “Maybe because you are carrying my child? Why didn’t you tell me Aoife? I would have…”

“Would have what?” she snatched up her discarded pillow as if she could use it as a shield against him. Avoiding his eyes, she sharpened her words on her anger, “Not broken things off with me? Kept me out of the fighting? Sacrificed yourself?”

She noted the strain of his fists against his dark leather breeches and the tightness in his jaw, “I wouldn’t have let you go.”

“I don’t believe you,” she let the words fly, hoping to lance a wince out of him, but instead she found his fists relaxing. She almost gasped when she finally looked him in the eye and saw how  wide and wistful those amber orbs were.

“Well, then,” his smile unraveled from knavish to an intent grin, as he leaned against one of the posts at the end of her bed, “I suppose I’ll just have to prove it to you.”

Aoife bit the inside of her lip again, trying to stifle the frustration in her voice. She did not want to lose any more ground to him, “And just how do you intend to do that?”

“Oh,” he shrugged, pushing off the bed post and trailing his fingers along the edge of her mattress, before stopping short of touching her knee, “I’m sure I’ll figure something out, I am King after all, and so I have advisors for these sorts of things. Now, I am afraid I must say goodnight. Petra told me not to stay over long if you woke, she’s afraid that I might upset you enough to set off more contractions.”

“You could hardly upset me anymore than did after the Landsmeet.”

It was a simple fact, but it finally earned Aoife the reaction out of him, as she watched him flinch back from the edge of her bed.

“And I am sorry about that Aoife, you don’t know how much,” Alistair voice was full of quiet gravel as he turned and walk to her door. He looked back over his shoulder at her, eyes hazed and glimmering with the distant fire light. “But I won’t risk your health or the child’s. We can speak more tomorrow, if Petra doesn’t turn me into a toad for staying with you this long. I’ll see that the servants are informed that you are awake. I imagine you must be hungry.”

She let him go without another word, for she found that she could not come up with a reply.


	11. “When you fell, you fell towards me, When you crashed in the clouds, you found me,” Barcelona

_Everything has_ it’s _breaking point, Alistair. That she has survived the Joining after losing so much speaks well of her resolve, but even_ dragonbone _can shatter if subjected to enough strain._ Duncan's words echoed through Alistair’s mind as he closed the door gently behind him and leaned his head against the door frame. At the time his mentor had said them, Duncan and Alistair had been kneeling over Aoife letting out held breaths as her Joining proved successful.

With his fingers clutching at air, then balling into white-knuckled fists, before finally gripping the door jam with a wood splintering intensity, Alistair wondered if he had finally reached his own. He had spent the entire journey running her letter over and over in his mind. It seemed to play on an endless loop, taunting him even in his sleep. And now, he had needed every ounce of self-control not to lash out at her and demand to know why she had kept her pregnancy a secret.

Rolling his forehead back and forth over the smooth wood of the door frame, Alistair recalled the first time he saw Aoife. Walking towards him as he badgered a mage on behalf of the Chantry, it had occurred to him that she was pretty, beautiful even, with her unruly tangle of auburn hair, viridian-hued eyes, and lightly tanned skin just dusted over the bridge of her nose with freckles, but he never expected anything to come of that thought. All his experiences with highborn ladies had taught him that they were all vain, self-absorbed things that would never have anything to do with someone as common as him. And then with the barest hint of a smile, she had begun a campaign to effectively set fire to everything he thought he knew about noblewomen. Still, Alistair had decided not to hold his breath, she had the Joining to survive. Then there was a Blight to stop, an army to raise, and an Archdemon to kill. It was too much to hope that she might ever consider him as more than just a fellow Grey Warden. But Andraste preserve him, he had hoped.

He kept hoping as he coaxed smile after smile and laugh after laugh from her as they faced the seemingly insurmountable odds. Maker, the first time he kissed her he felt like he was drowning. By the time he had worked up the nerve to ask her to spend the night with him, he knew that he stood a good chance of never wanting to let her go, or spend another night without her in his arms. Until Eamon had caught him off guard after the Landsmeet, he had been contemplating how to make her his queen without too much uproar from the Bannorn. But then he had allowed himself to be swayed by Eamon’s well meaning words about heirs and marriage. Apparently, the Arl was aware of the chances of a Grey Warden having a child. So he’d taken the coward's way out, thinking to spare her the cruel scrutiny of the court.

After that, she did not smile at him and her eyes became distant cold things. Alistair bit back a groan as everything Duncan had told him after that sage pronouncement came back with crystal clarity and Alistair remembered every move she had made during Ostagar. How at his joke about everyone getting along and holding hands, her smile had come with a flicker that turned her bright green eyes into the dark shaded hues of a haunted forest. The scalded flinch that had taken her over when Ser Jory had recognized her as a Cousland. The brief panic that took over her face when she saw the wounded soldier in the Korcari Wilds. There were probably more moments when her fragility had shown through, but she’d been so strong through their travels, it had been easy for Alistair forget she was only human.

Pushing himself away from the door, he held his curses with a leaden tongue. She had not demanded that he leave, but every word out of her mouth had been a bladed edge, honed fine, and aimed to make him bleed. But her eyes were still dull hard things, accosting him from a haggard and wan face that held all the emotion that those eyes never touched.

He needed a plan. A way to spark some reaction out of those dead green pools. The first thing that came to mind was to get her to call him Alistair again. If he couldn’t convince her to stop calling him “ _Your Majesty_ ” then he rather doubted his ability to convince her of anything.

A polite cough startled Alistair as he realized he was still pacing outside Aoife’s door.

Petra stood at the end of the hall watching him with a concerned tilt to her head, “Is everything all right your Majesty? Is she awake?”

Alistair nodded not quite trusting his voice just yet.

“Did the two of your speak?”

“We...,” Alistair took a breath, “did...a little. If this whole situation was a duel then I would say the encounter was more of a first feint than a true conversation.”

“And does your Majesty always use tactics and battle terminology to describe conversations with women?” Petra’s smile was cattish, reminding him distinctly of Wynne’s and of conversations about cats and canaries.

Running his hand through his still too short hair, Alistair shrugged and crossed the hall to stand closer to the mage, “Only when I think I’m in danger of making a complete ass of myself.”

Petra’s brows ticked upward, “And did your Majesty make a complete ass of himself?”

“Oh, not over much,” Alistair couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him, “I can see why Wynne sent you here. You’re very much like her, except with fewer wrinkles and grey hairs.”

“Well, she was my mentor and friend, your Majesty,” the mage bobbed her head in the direction of Aoife’s room, “Now, I am afraid I must see to Lady Cousland. I think I might have overwhelmed her earlier with my declaration of bed rest.”

Alistair caught Petra’s upper arm as she made her way past him, “Please, tell me truly. Is she going to be alright?”

The red-headed mage bit the corner of her mouth, while a shadow clouded her pale green eyes, “I don’t know, your Majesty. Wynne...she suspected that the Lady may only be living for the child. And, aside from her birth pangs trying to come early and her body readying itself more than it should at this point, she is healthy...at least in the body. Beyond that, your Majesty, I cannot say.”

“Thank you for being honest with me, Petra,” he knew his voice was raspy and most un-kingly, but Alistair needed to know the odds he was up against. Letting go of the young mage’s arm he bowed his head with a thin smile, “I shan't keep you from her any longer.”

Petra looked up at him, eyes narrowed and head cocked as if she was searching his face for something. Whatever it was, she seemed to find it, and she gave a hesitant smile, “For what it’s worth your Majesty, I think you did the right thing by coming here.”

Alistair simply nodded in acknowledgement as he watched the mage disappear into Aoife’s room. He stood there for a few moments longer before walking out of the keep and letting his feet wander the halls of Castle Cousland. At first, he didn’t have any sense of purpose to his steps, and chose halls and walks at random. Eventually, something caught the attention of his wandering thoughts and his steps became more focused.

_Someone had set the castle aflame, it seemed like there were fire breaks at every turn, and Howe’s men just kept coming.  We found my old tutor in the library with his throat slit. My mother made some promise of vengeance to the Maker, but after Oren and Oriana, I didn’t have much in the way of tears. The man could be such an insufferable bore sometimes, Alistair, still he didn’t deserve that end, none of them did._

His fingers trailed over the glossy wood of  newly framed shelves. There were a few books, but Alistair hadn’t expected there to be many. The castle had burned, but someone was making an effort to put things back the way they once were. He took one more look at the shell of a library with its adjoining study before wending through castle again.

_So much history in that room, so fragile, and now it's probably gone with the simple application of fire. I used to spend evenings listening to my father read the old tales and now to think I will never hear them...No, please just let me finish, if I stop now I don’t think I’ll ever want to talk about this again... we managed to find Ser Gilmore marshalling a defense in the Great Hall._

The stone here had been scoured with lye and talc, but Alistair could still see the evidence of the battle that had been fought. Mage fire and other spells, as he found out from the cleanup efforts in Denerim, were particularly hard to remove. The room also had the sweet grassy scent of fresh thatch, and Alistair knew without looking up that the roof above him was another part of the castle that had been repaired.

_Despite his injuries, my father apparently went looking for us in the larder. Hoping that we had somehow slipped by Howe’s men and were waiting for him. He could be so stubborn and domineering when he wanted to be, which is I suppose why Ser Gilmore wasn’t able to convince him to stay in the hall. Not that it mattered. I didn’t want to think about it at the time, but whoever had wounded him had struck true. He wouldn’t have made it out of the castle for all my wishing…_

Alistair startled the cook and an elfin servant, who were busy banking the fires in the cook hearth and cleaning the last of the pots from dinner. They stuttered and curtsied, and he begged a piece of bread and a knob of local goat’s cheese to mollify their surprise. His eyes however flicked past their scrambling platitudes to the larder, and the dark stain on the otherwise unmarred and spotless stones.

_Maker, there was so much blood...more blood than I could believe, I didn’t believe. Neither did mother at first, but I think once Duncan appeared she began to understand how all this was all going to end, even if I still didn’t. I told you once that I wanted to be a Grey Warden, but not in the way it happened. That’s not entirely true. I was infatuated with the idea as a way out of the political marriage my father was contemplating. It seem to me a better option than the one I had schemed up to seduce and marry Bann Loren’s eldest. At least then maybe my skills would be appreciated instead of being seen as an eccentricity of my father._

He found himself back in the great hall, staring up at the bright tawny gold of the thatch as he sat with his feet resting on the edge of the hearth. Alistair noted the pair of toasting forks resting in the far left hand corner of the wide hearth, but he didn’t bother with them. Instead he’d dragged the most comfortable chair he could scrounge in the half furnished room over to the immense hearth, and plopped unceremoniously into the chair. He’d finished most of the cheese and bread anyhow.

_Duncan never pushed me about it, even though I had protested the idea thinking that Howe wouldn’t let Fergus slip so easily away even if it was to the uncertainty of a battle. I can understand why you miss him so much. He was kind and stern in the ways I needed someone to be after Howe took everything from me. My father’s protest of duty may have gotten me to accept Duncan’s offer, but I think it was Duncan that got me to believe I could be a Warden in spite of everything. But you make me want to live through this Alistair, you make me want more than duty...and I love you so much for that..._

Alistair pulled himself upright, and leaned forward in his chair, “Maker forgive me, I’m not sure I can live with myself if I’ve broken her.”


	12. “You see those egg shells, they're broken up, A million pieces, strung out across the ground” - Bridy

She had taken her breakfast in her room.

Petra had explained to Aoife that she did not mean that she should spend the remaining weeks of her pregnancy in confinement, but rather that Aoife should spend as little time on her feet as possible. Long rambling walks about the castle were no longer an option and trips up the steep spiral stairs of the North Tower where out of the question. Short trips to the Dining Hall, the Great Hall, or even the Library were acceptable and if necessary a litter would be built to accommodate any changes to her situation.

With such an expansive list of options open to her, Aoife could have made the short trip down to the Dining Hall. But that meant that she risked running into Alistair, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that yet.

Nothing about their first encounter had gone the way she thought it would. He hadn’t yelled at her for one, in fact, he had barely raised his voice. He’d made one stab at her, throwing her words about ‘having advisors’ back at her, but other than that he’d been a gentleman. He had even apologized to her after a fashion, if she wanted to believe him. And if she was in the mood to be honest with herself, part of her did. Still, the whole thing had unnerved her a bit. She had expected him to storm into the castle and demand she marry him. Or barring that, she had at least expected him to demand rights to the child. The fact that he had done neither of those things was surprising. Maybe Wynne had been right and she had let her bitterness color her opinions of what he would do once he knew she was carrying his child.

She shook her head at the stray thought. It wasn’t worth contemplating at this stage. She still didn’t know who had come with Alistair and what their agenda might be in regards to her and the babe she carried.

The mid-morning sun was streaming through her high windows with wanton abandon and flooding her room with a warm light. It would have made the room cheerful, if she was in the mood to be swayed by the vagaries of the autumnal sun. Instead, it made the room feel confining. She had sat contemplating the same four walls for far too long. A chance encounter with  Alistair notwithstanding, she needed to get out of her bedchamber. If she was lucky, she might make it to her grandfather’s study without being noticed.

Unfortunately, Ser Drustan seemed to be hovering nervously outside her door.

Shrugging on her cloak, she gave the Seneschal an appraising look. His face looked haggard, like he had not slept well, and his eyes would not meet hers as he shifted back and forth on his heels.  

Aoife sighed, “You sent a runner out for my brother last night, didn’t you Seneschal?”

The young Seneschal winced slightly, as if expecting a blow, “Yes, my Lady.”

“And has my brother returned then?” she rubbed her fingers from temple to temple, as if warding herself against the headache she knew was going to form there now that her brother was back from his hunt.

“Yes, your ladyship, the Teyrn is with the King in the Great Hall as we speak.”

“And is he being civil, Ser Drustan?” she crossed her arms over her chest. She suspected that she already knew what the Seneschal would say. At almost eight years her senior, Fergus had always taken his role as the older brother rather seriously, well at least when he hadn’t been trying to forget he was no longer an only child.

“He was being as civil as a man in his position can be, given the circumstances.”

Biting back a frustrated sigh, Aoife held off on a more waspish reply to Ser Drustan’s attempt at an evasive slight. He was loyal to her brother and she could not slight him for that. “Well, I suppose that’s all anyone can hope for at this point. Would you be so kind as to walk with me to the library?”

Surprise bloomed on Ser Drustan’s face, making it comically clownish, “You do not wish to go to down to the hall, my Lady?”

Aoife shook her head, “No. I can well imagine how diplomatic my brother is being, and I don’t think my nerves could take it.”

“Of course, my Lady,” the Seneschal held out his arm, which Aoife took without another word.

Even from the atrium, she could hear her brother’s voice booming out from the Great Hall. “You want me to believe, Sire, that you had no idea the woman you profess to love was with child? Do you really expect me to believe that?”

Alistair’s voice, though it carried just as well as her brother’s, assaulted her ears with much less sneer, “Whether or not you believe is of no concern to me, Teyrn Cousland, but for what it is worth, I am telling the truth. I wasn’t raised in the Chantry after all. I know how these things happen, I am not a complete fool, but I did not realize it was happening to your sister. I merely thought Aoife was ill. We had just been exposed to whatever pestilence was working its way through the Alienage.”

Aoife found herself rooted to cobblestone walk that ran down from the atrium, surprised as much by the conversation she and most of the castle was overhearing as she was by her brother’s lack of discretion. Did no one think of closing the doors to the hall?

“My Lady?” Ser Drustan’s concerned inquiry muffled whatever her brother said next.

Ignoring him, she let the conversation from the hall reverberate through her as much as it rang off the stones of the castle.

“My lord, his Majesty has no reason to lie,” the rich baritone timbre of Bann Teagan caught in Aoife’s ears.

Fergus’ barking laugh was hollow and cold, “Does he not, Bann Teagan? I think his Majesty has every reason to lie his way back into my sister’s good graces.”

There was a muffled protest before her brother’s voice plowed on, almost strident with anger and cracking in spots, “You haven’t been here boy. You haven’t held her trembling and screaming in the night. You haven’t sat and listened to her cry. You haven’t watched her ghost through these halls. You haven’t wondered...if she’s just...saving enough strength for the birth.”

Alistair said something she could not make out.

Her brother laughed again, “And you think that makes it better? You think that means you’ll be forgiven? That all will be forgotten?”

Shaking herself from her stupor, Aoife looked up at the Seneschal, “Come, I find I must now keep my brother from making a complete ass of himself.”

Walking as quickly as she could manage in her condition, Aoife heard Bann Teagan speak again as she rounded the corner, “Do you intend to revoke Lady Cousland’s offer of hospitality then?”

“No,” Fergus’s reply was practically a bark, “I will not gainsay my sister’s decision. Even if it means we will be stuck with you until Wintersend.”

The was a muted reply of thanks as Aoife noted that the doors to the hall were swung wide open.

“Do not thank me Bann Teagan. If it were my choice, I would have my guards escort both you and the King from the castle and the holding of my Teyrn. In fact…”

“That’s enough Fergus!” Aoife had shrugged herself off Ser Drustan’s arm and strode into the hall with all the authority that befitted her station. Her voice carried through the room, and seemed to startle everyone that heard it. The guards stood straighter and the two at the far end of the hall even seemed to shake off whatever stupor had entranced them and closed the doors.

Fergus stood in front of the hearth, still clad in his mud splattered heavy mail. He looked bewilderedly at his sister, “Aoife, what are you doing here? I was told you’d be in confinement.”

“If your Seneschal had waited to send you word of the King's arrival as I asked, brother, then maybe you would have been properly informed of my condition. I would have simply had Ser Drustan escort me to the library, if I had not heard you yelling at our guests,” she tried to clamp down on the shudder that crept over her spine as she came to complete the square of lords that encircled her brother. She did not want to think about the last time she stood in such close quarters with men on this very spot; and she tried not to think about Alistair’s eyes on her, to ascribe to them characteristics that they did not merit just because he stood in the same spot as that calculating, obsequious bastard. Inclining her head at Bann Teagan and smiling with as much warmth as she could manage having been kicked just under the ribs by the babe in her womb, she decided to ignore the looks she was receiving from both her brother and the King. “I do hope, Bann Teagan, that my brother did not manage to be overly insulting.”

“Ah, no, my Lady. Bracing, perhaps, but not overly insulting,” the Bann of Rainisfere’s smile was wide, even as his eyes creased in the corners and made a quick glance at the King,  “Are you sure you are alright? You looked a bit strained for a moment.”

“Aoife, for the Maker’s sake sit down,” Fergus barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at her before jutting a muddy gauntlet in her direction.

“I am not made of glass, Fergus, and you are covered in mud. You should really go and change out of that armor. Our guests may be too polite to say anything, but I’m your sister and you reek of animal musk and mud,” Aoife turned just enough to lance her brother with an arched glare, before warmly turning her attention back to the Bann,  “To answer your question Bann Teagan I am fine, save for the babe deciding that now was a good time to kick me.”

“Does our child kick their mother often?” Alistair’s voice was warm, full of half remember evenings they had sat by the fire during the Blight, just talking, and it chilled Aoife with the biting edge of a Frostback wind.

Fergus hissed his light blue eyes a flame, “You’ve no right, Ser…”

“Fergus!” Aoife grabbed her brother by the arm, not caring anymore about the grim. “Go calm yourself before you do something not even father would approve of.”

Her brother glowered at her, but she held his gaze, “Fine, but I am leaving the Seneschal here.”

Letting out the breath she’d been holding as she stared down her brother, Aoife wanted to remark on how she was hardly a girl anymore and thus did not need to be chaperoned, but she did not want to press her luck. Fergus’ temper had always been explosive when someone actually managed to spark it, “Fine. So long as you go now, Fergus.”

Fergus gave the King a lancing glare, before giving Bann Teagan a curt bow. Aoife then watched as her brother, muttering under his breath, ground out of the hall, trailing caked mud and gravel in his wake.

 


	13. "Is there a chance? A fragment of light at the end of the tunnel? A reason to fight?" - A Fine Frenzy

After his appearance at the fealty ceremony, Alistair vaguely remembered Eamon saying something about Fergus Cousland to him. How the Arl suspected that the young Teyrn had inherited his grandfather’s slow to spark, but explosive temper. Teyrn Graeme Cousland had apparently been a rather genial and good natured man by all accounts, but swift and ferocious in his retribution and justice if the stories that were told about the battles between him and Tarleton Howe were to be believed. Having been yelled at by the Teyrn for a good half an hour before Aoife had appeared, Alistair was certain the comparison was not without merit and he began to wonder which of the two Couslands would be the hardest for him to win over, Aoife or her brother.

Once the Teyrn had left the room, Aoife finally looked at him, her face a mask of neutrality, save for her eyes, which widened for the briefest second, “Your Majesty came rather close to being called out by my brother I’m afraid.”

“Really? And here I thought we were all having a friendly chat,” it was sardonic of him, and Alistair could hear Teagan groan next to him, but even during the Blight, Aoife’s flare for stating the obvious had gotten under his skin.

“Yes, well not all siblings are gold digging harridans,” Aoife scoured him with a stony glare, and Alistair could not help the miniscule upturn of his lips. He was by no means taken in by her feint, his half-sister was, in fact, a gold digging harridan and he’d come to terms with that long before the end of the Blight. Aoife pinched her eyes shut, possibly to cover the roll of her eyes before continuing, “I would be remiss in my duties as a hostess if I did not at least warn Your Majesty…”

“It’s Alistair,” he interrupted, moving to stand at more of an angle to her so as to keep her gaze, “AL...LIS...STAIR, or have you already forgotten my name?”

Aoife took a deep breath, and with narrow, flinty eyes staring back into his continued, “As I was saying, Your Maj…”

“Alistair,” he clipped through her words again and noted the little, furrowed knot that always turned up just between her finely arch brows when she was frustrated. Seeing it tugged the corners of his mouth into a thin line of knavery.

Another breath, and her word came hissing out at him through clenched teeth, “I was trying to tell you that my brother is not to be trifled with and he will call you out if provoked.”

“Hmm, I see what you're doing there Aoife, avoiding my name and title entirely,” Alistair wagged a finger at her, “It’s not going to work you know. I can be very determined when I want to be, can’t I Teagan?”

“Of course, your Majesty is often most determined,” the Bann supplied quickly before his voice became stern, “though in present company I am not sure that his Majesty is not determined to make a complete ass of himself.”

It took a moment longer than it should have, but Alistair felt the conversation turn away from his control, and he blustered as he heard a faint snide giggle from Aoife, “What?”

“Alistair,” his uncle’s blue eyes were stern as he gestured at Aoife, “the Lady Cousland has been standing for far too long, and you are baiting her like a child. My lady, please allow me to escort you to one of the chairs by the hearth.”

Aoife inclined her head, flashing Alistair a snide smirk as she took Teagan’s offered arm, “Thank you, Bann Teagan, I would appreciate that.”

A harsh chuckle drew Alistair’s attention away from Teagan and Aoife to the single door at the far left side of the room. There Seneschal Drustan stood, eyes a dark cobalt and his arms crossed over his chest. There was a smug grin too, and it rather reminded Alistair of Loghain, which did nothing to improve either Alistair’s opinion of the man or his mood. The Seneschal just stared back at Alistair, eyes glimmering darkly under arched brows.

Teagan and Aoife were apparently ignoring his apparent lapse in attention and were chatting amicably about the weather or some other banal topic. It wasn’t until Alistair heard the word fish guts and mud that Alistair realized the Bann of Rainesfere was relating how the then awkward stable boy Alistair had met the Bann while covered head to toe in thick, squelching mud.

He groaned, of all the stories Teagan could be telling it would have to be that one. For all the campfire swapped tales he had to invent and embellish during his brief time as a Warden, Alistair had managed to not reveal that bit of embarrassment for entire Maker be damned Blight. He could just imagine what the glowering Seneschal thought of him know, having been privy to Teagan’s colorful retelling. Alistair was certain it would be relayed to the Teyrn.

“Of course, at the time I had no idea that Alistair was the King’s son, so I’m afraid I treated him rather coolly.”

“Trust me, Teagan,” Alistair walked up the two steps of the dais to where Teagan had tucked Aoife by the fire and decided to stand just off to the side of her chair. There wasn’t another chair around the small table anyhow. He would have to walk to the other side of the room if he wanted to sit, “Your idea of responding coolly to someone is practically a balmy night in Antiva compared to how Lady Isolde reacted when she found out.”

“Yes, I am rather sorry about that, your Majesty.” Teagan grimaced.

Alistair shrugged, resisting the urge to lay his arm across the top of Aoife’s chair, “I was used to it by then, I can’t remember how many times I was sent to the quartermaster at the barest hint that anything had gone missing from the larder, especially if it was cheese. Or if one of the hounds or horses wasn’t properly looked after.”

Aoife seemed determined to focus on Bann Teagan, but her head turned ever so slightly towards him, her eyes impassive and unreadable, “Did the Arlessa really have you switched over missing cheese?”

Even though she sat rigidly in her armchair, and was doing her damnedest to look like she did not care, there was the barest twist of concern in her face. It pulled at the corners of her eyes, lurked in the shaded green liquid they held, and loosened the knot of frustration in her brow. _She cares, somewhere deep down she still cares_ , Alistair swept his sword arm through his hair, hoping the gesture would hide his excitement. “Yes, well, the first time it happened it wasn’t even my fault. It was some gangly girl I’d been playing with who actually stole from the larder, though I suppose I was an accomplice. The Arlessa was furious with me for even suggesting that a girl had been the culprit because the only girl that fit my description was some noble’s daughter.”

Teagan’s face was drawn and his lips were pulled thin, “When did this happen?”

“During that gathering Arl Eamon had just after Connor was born I think. Truly, Teagan, I hardly even think of it anymore. Well, the switching at least,” Alistair shrugged again, hoping to convey a total lack of care for his less than happy childhood as a member of Eamon’s household. There were bright moments, the day he’d spent playing with that girl was one, and the day the Arl had let him pick out that golem doll from the Wonders of Thedas was another. That those moments were also marred by Lady Isolde was just another part of his past. He had learned the hard way that it was better to hold on to the good memories, rather than the bad.

The Bann of Rainesfere still looked a tad unconvinced, but it wasn’t until recently that Alistair found out that Teagan had been rather incensed at Lady Isolde’s treatment of Alistair. Teagan had even gone as far as trying to get Eamon to release the Alistair into Teagan’s care instead. But the Arl had not wanted to ruin his brothers chances at a suitable marriage and Alistair was on his way to the Chantry anyway. Finally, the Bann simply shook his head and looked back over at Aoife and startled, “Are you alright, my Lady, you look as though you’ve seen some kind of Fade spirit.”

“I’m fine,” Aoife’s hand rubbed across her brow temple to temple, “it was just a sudden chill.”

“Should I get the healer?” offered Teagan.

“Or your brother, your ladyship?” Ser Drustan grumbled from his sentry post by the door.

“I swear you are all worse than my old Nan, I’m fine,” Aoife’s voice was low, with a hint of grumbling annoyance, as her finger pressed lightly into her left temple.

Alistair was not fooled in the least. He looked at Teagan, “Go find Petra and tell her that her Lady Cousland has a headache.”

Teagan nodded rising from his chair without hesitation, “Of course, your Majesty.”

His eyes followed the Bann as he walked over to where Ser Drustan stood, Alistair stood straighter and tried to be as commanding as he could manage, “Seneschal Drustan, would I be correct in assuming that the study off the library is the quietest room in the castle?’

“You would, your Majesty,” the Seneschal said slowly, “but I am not about to abandon my duty.”

“So you will allow Lady Cousland to suffer in a room that was open to the elements for the greater part of the morning instead of seeing that the library was well prepared to receive her?” Alistair growled, feeling himself nearing the end of his patience with the man. “I traveled with Lady Cousland for almost a whole year, I know when she’s in pain.”

The Seneschal opened his mouth, but Teagan clapped Ser Drustan on the shoulder and said something to him in a low whisper which made the man turn rather pale and slightly green. Alistair almost rolled his eyes, knowing Teagan was probably telling the man a rather embellished tale of how Alistair had dueled the Hero of the River Dane, but instead he decided that narrowing his and folding his hands over his chest would better serve the moment. The Seneschal stomped his foot, but left with Teagan.

Aoife had leaned her head in left hand and was looking up at Alistair. Her eyes were narrow slashes of green. She drummed the fingers of her sword arm lightly along the edge of the chairs upholstered arm as Alistair looked down at her, “Oh yes, I can so see how we would have ended up lost, your Highness.”

“Switching honorifics,” he smiled shaking his head. “Now who’s being childish.”

“Did you ever stop?” Aoife’s brows arched, and her lips turned into a tight smirk, “I seem to recall you doing quite a lot of whining while we traveled.”

Alistair moved in front of her, and sat against the edge of the small gaming table, “And here I thought I was being awkwardly endearing, I seem to remember someone saying that they liked that about me.”

“Hmm,” she was rubbing her left temple again. It wasn’t a good sign. She did not have many of such headaches when they’d been focused on stopping the Blight, but the ones she had were memorable, “well I suppose we all say things we don’t mean from time to time.”

“Not me,” Alistair was hoping that his sharp tone would end the conversation. He could see where it was going and he did not want to argue with her right now.

“Really?” She folded her arms over the top of her womb, and cocked her head to the side. She reminded Alistair of Anora when she sat like that, all cool calculation and an icicle for a soul. It certainly was not an image he wanted to have of Aoife. “I seem to recall you saying that you wouldn’t let me go, that there would be time to discuss our future after the Blight was dealt with, but then you went and made all the decisions without me.”

Wiping his hand over his face and down his chin till he practically tugged at the short goatee he’d decided to grow, Alistair looked Aoife in the eye, and saw those green eyes of hers flash wide once again before her cold mask snapped back over her face again. He leaned toward her as he almost whispered his reply, “What you do want me to say? That I never loved you, that it was all some devious plot, Aoife? I’m not that nefarious Aoife, you know that.”

“Do I?” her brow arched higher.

“I think you do.”

Her left hand went back to rubbing her temple, and she squeezed her eyes shut, “Alistair, please just leave me alone.”

“No, Aoife,” he kept his words quiet, but insistent. He didn’t want to argue, but it was too late for that now, “I left you alone after the Landsmeet. I am not leaving you alone now.

“Why?” she barely opened her eyes to look at him, “Why can’t you just let me be?”

“You know why,” Alistair knew his words were coming out with more force than he intended, but he was losing his grip on his own emotions.“If you wanted to be left alone you should have gone with Zevran or Sten, or even to Tevinter with Wynne and Shale. You certainly shouldn’t have stayed in Ferelden, and you most certainly should not have sent me that note.”

Aoife opened her eyes fully again and looked at him. The inscrutable mask she’d been trying to maintain was cracked around the edges. A hazy glaze coated her eyes and her chin was set as if imperiously chiseled.

But there was something of the hind just looking up from its grazing to scent the wind for a predator to the way she stared at him and Alistair decided to press his advantage, “Someone once told me that I needed to stick up for myself more, unfortunately changes like that don’t happen overnight. So yes, I allowed Arl Eamon to appeal to my uncertainty when he spoke to me after the Landsmeet. And you can hate me for that if you want Aoife, I probably deserve it, but I am not leaving Highever without you and our child.”

“You are an infuriating bastard,” if she had meant to snarl at him, her words came at him with dull teeth.

“Yes I am, now are you going to sit there till that shadow of a Seneschal gets back or allow me to escort you to the quiet of the library study?”


	14. "Grief is a freight train, Oh what's a little pain, When you've got so much to love” -Sara Jackson Holman

Aoife stared absently at the reflection of her hands as she worked her silverite comb through her hair.

It had been a long day full of more surprises than she cared to have thrown at her all at once and, though it had galled her somewhat at the time, Alistair still knew her in the way only a lover could, noting the strain of her oncoming headache. It had irked her even more when his commands managed to get Petra to her in time for a tincture of elfroot and embrium to actually quell the pain before it overtook her.

But Maker help her, his eyes had continued to startle her for the remainder of the day. The amber-hued orbs looked at her openly and brimmed with love. Even when they crinkled at the corners with a hint of mirth, or furrowed with frustration, there was still love staring out from them. It unnerved her.  

She supposed that it was at least a good thing that Alistair had been quick to show his intent so soon. Eamon may have begun to mold Alistair into a shrewd monarch, but there was still too much of the earnest boy in him. If Alistair managed to not have that part of himself completely squashed by the Arl and the stress of having to rule a country, it would continue to paint him as an empathic and charismatic King who, despite the difficult decisions of ruling, had the best interests of his people at heart.

Aoife paused mid-stroke and looked sternly at her reflection on the smooth surface of her vanity mirror, “He’s not your concern anymore, you know.”

Her reflection sighed and resumed combing through her tangled tresses as if doubting her own resolve.

After ensconcing her in the study, Alistair had been her constant shadow throughout the day until Petra managed to scold him away just before tea. Aoife had taken her dinner in her room with the midwife, Mistress Oswin, just to avoid him. Of course this meant she was subjected to the woman’s disapproving glares and not so subtle remarks about the evils of magic. By the time it was polite enough for Aoife ask Mistress Oswin to leave, Aoife felt more strained and more wrung out than she had after spent a good portion of the day in Alistair’s company.

Fergus had not been pleased about that development, but her headache and Alistair’s treatment of her had earned the King some begrudging thanks from her brother, though only after Petra pointed how much worse thing could have turned out if Alistair had not taken action. In turn, Fergus granted Alistair a reprieve from being overseen by the dower Seneschal.

There was a firm rap on her door.

“Come in,” she called, not bothering to stop working her comb. The mirror confirmed what the knock suggested, as Fergus strode into her room and began to pace at the foot of her bed.

“I can’t believe you let that man touch you again,” Fergus stated flatly, after a long moment where the only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire and the swish-whisk of the comb through her hair.

Aoife looked through the mirror of her vanity to the reflection of her brother glowering at her as he stopped pacing. She worked a final stroke of her comb through her tangled curls, before setting the comb down before looking over her shoulders at her brother, “Honestly, I’m not sure why either.”

“That’s not very reassuring sister,” he walked up behind her as she began to nimbly work her somewhat tamed hair into a long braided rope. “What is he doing here anyway?”

The question hung in the air as Aoife finished braiding and then turned in her seat so she could face her brother. She took a deep breath, “He’s here in part because I wrote to him.”

“You what?” The look of disbelief on Fergus’ face made the sky blue of his eyes darken stormily as his jaw tensed, and his hands curled into fists.

“Fergus,” Aoife kept her voice level, even as she felt herself starting to fray at the edges. The day had been too long already. “I need you to stop reacting for a minute and listen. Can you do that brother?”

“There had better a good explanation for all this,” he was still glowering at her, but his hands loosened, even if he did settle them across his chest. For a moment, Aoife was reminded of the way her father would stand whenever one of them had been caught doing something wrong. He was even wearing a similarly cut doublet of crimson brocade which was trimmed with thread of gold. She felt an all too familiar ache in her chest at the sight.

Taking a deep breath, Aoife hoped to dislodge the lump that was being to form in her throat. “There is an explanation, of a sorts, but I doubt you are going to like it.”

Fergus squeezed his arms against his chest and looked up at the ceiling briefly before looking back down at her, his voice rumbling and laced with frustration, “Aoife, that is hardly helping.”

She fidgeted with the silver embroidery that decorated the edges of her blue dressing gown, “The King was not lying this morning when he told you he did not know I was carrying his child.”

“Oh,” there was a derisive snort to Fergus’ words, “and how is that possible, aside from his being a Chantry sheltered lack-wit.”

Aoife stopped teasing the rough edges of the embroidery and caught her brother’s stormy eyes with hers, “I never told him.”

“You what?” Fergus dropped his arms back to his sides and stare at her with his mouth slightly agape and his brow furrowed.  

“I never told him,” she said again, feeling her chest constrict as the lump in her throat growing into a boulder.

“But I thought…” Fergus took a step forward, swinging his arms as if he was trying to decide whether to form them into fists again, shake an irate finger at her, or fold them over his chest. He finally settled for running them through his shaggy auburn hair before refolding them over his chest.

“No Fergus, you assumed,” Aoife cut off her brother with a shake of her head while giving him a thin wan smile. She could feel tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “You always assume, and when you do you always assume the worst. Not even all the efforts of Father and Brother Aldous could break you of that habit.”

Fergus turned on his heel and stormed a small circle in front of her, “So you let me think the King was the worst kind of coward and lecher, in Andraste’s name why?”

It was hard for her to put into words what had happened to her after defeating the Archdemon. She’d felt like an over-taught tripwire for so long, trying not to snap. The battle through Denerim had been grueling. She had tried not to worry, to put on a strong front and fight, but she knew she was throwing her companions into more danger. And she had held back some, worrying about the safety of the life she harbored.

Her nerves had almost snapped when she found herself blown onto her back after striking the killing blow. She ached as it she’d been crushed in the grasp of an ogre, and blood ran down her forehead as she tried to sit up. For the first time in her life, Aoife felt panic take root in her and she began to shake violently in the pool of blood and gore that surrounded her. It was only when Wynne slapped her across the face that she realized that the strident off-kilter laughter she’d been hearing had been her own.

She shook her head, pinching out tears and feeling them roll slowly down her cheek, “I just wanted to go home. Seeing you alive after I thought I lost you too, it was all suddenly too much, being a Warden, losing mother and father, ending the Blight. I just wanted to you to take me home.”

Fergus sat swiftly down on what little room there was on the stool of her vanity and  wrapped his arms around her shuddering shoulders, “Shhh, don’t cry little sister. Please don’t, you know I’m worthless when you start crying.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder as the tears came in earnest and her words came out between rattling, gulping gasps, “I was...afraid...you’d...be like...Wynne...and insist...I...tell...him.”

“Well that explains a lot of the half finished arguments I walked in on at least,” Fergus chuckled, squeezing her shoulders, even as another wave of tears assaulted her at the thought of how she had treated Wynne the last few months, “Shh, oh, shhh. My little sister, always over thinking things. I wouldn’t have, if you’d asked me, Aoife, I would have done everything in my power to shield you from him if that was what you wanted. Is that what you want?”

Aoife shook her head.

“Do you know what you want?” he tilted her head gently and she looked him through tear hazed eyes.

She shook her head, burying it against his chest. There had been so many nights like this since they had come back to Highever that Aoife almost forgot the Fergus who used to pull her hair and tease her about being more of a boy than a proper girl.

“Well,” Fergus said with a solemn sigh as he pushed her gently upright. “I can’t do much of anything if I don’t know what is you want, now can I?”

“No,” she managed to squeak the word out past the constriction of her throat.

“Come on,” he took her hands in his as he stood, pulling her slowly up with him, “I think it's to bed with you dear sister. You always end up looking like a drowned splotchy rat after you’ve had good cry, and you look exhausted as well. We can figure this out tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Fergus, for listening,” feeling small and foolish, she suddenly found the floor beneath her fascinating.  

“Of course,” he turned her face back up, looking at her with an urgency in his clear azure eyes, “you’re my little sister Aoife. You and the babe are all the family I have left. I would protect your freedom with my life if I needed to.”

“I know,” she said lamely, turning her chin out of his hand and sitting down on her bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you sooner.”

“There no need to apologize. Neither of us made it out of the last year without scars,” Fergus walked over and tucked an escaped stray hair behind her ear, “Mother was always good at putting us back together whenever anything bad happened. She always seemed to know just by looking at us if something was wrong or if we needed to talk. I think if this situation teaches us anything it’s that we are poor substitutes for her.”

“Probably,” Aoife gave her brother another thin smile, “but I still should have been honest with you.”

“Yes well, I’m not father, so I’ll not lecture you on the finer points of honesty,” Fergus grinned broadly, before his face sobered again and he took her hands in his once more. “Just promise me you’ll talk to me, Aoife. The King seems rather determined to stay, and I don’t want you to feel bullied into anything.”

“I promise you,” she gave Fergus’ hands a faint squeeze, “if he tries to bully me into anything, brother, you will be the first to know.”

“Good,” Fergus smiled broadly at her, eyes sparkling wetly in the dim fire light as he squeezed her hands back before letting them go, “Now please try and get some sleep tonight. I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to be eventful to say the least.”

Aoife tugged at her dressing gown suddenly cold as she watched her brother leave her room. She sat staring at her door till the light from the candle by her bedside table flickered and almost gutted, before finally walking over and bolting it, and climbing awkwardly into bed.  Her hearth fire had nearly burnt down to ruddy embers by the time sleep finally pulled her into the Fade.


	15. “And so it goes, this soldier knows, The battle with the heart isn't easily won” - Ingrid Michaelson

Alistair wasn’t quite sure what he had just gotten himself into, but he was committed now and there was no going back.

He’d been in Highever, a slightly unwelcome guest of the Teyrn of Highever, for a little under a week. Aoife seemed resigned to his presence, even if he was still trying to convince her to use his actual name instead of his title. Mostly, she seemed to reserve the use of his name for times when she was frustrated or annoyed with him. Still, she was at least talking to him; there was something to be made of that.

The Teyrn of Highever was turning out to be just as challenging a puzzle as his sister and Alistair still wasn’t sure where he stood with Aoife’s brother. After having spent much of Alistair’s first full day in the castle glaring and growling at the King, Fergus Cousland seemed to not precisely warm to Alistair, but tolerate him with a less overt disgust and rage.

Even so, Alistair could not help but wonder if he was in over his head where the Teyrn was concerned. He was after all currently pacing a wide circle across from Fergus and wishing he had been able to find a practice shield with a sturdier grip. The Teyrn of Highever had not exactly challenged him to a duel, but looking at how grimly Fergus’ eyes glinted from under the ridge of his steel helm, Alistair wonder if the man actually thought he was just sparring with the King.

They were certainly dressed for sparring rather than dueling, in heavily padded gambesons and steel riveted brigantines. Never mind the fact that their swords were dull enough to be more effectively wielded as maces rather than cutting weapons. Still, the Teyrn paced in a way that was as menacing as it was feral.

He could have refused the Teyrn, it certainly might prove to be the wiser option, but something about the way Fergus had approached him at breakfast gave Alistair impression that refusing would only serve to hurt his campaign to win the regard of the Couslands. Well, at least Fergus’ regard anyway, Aoife had not been down for the morning meal once again but Alistair imagined she would not have been happy with this development.

From the way Fergus moved to the way he held his shield, Alistair could tell it was already an uneven fight. The Teyrn may have had the best weapons tutelage his upbringing could afford, but between Templar and Warden training and a year of fighting Darkspawn, Alistair’s skills outstripped even some of the hardened veterans in his guard. It was well known in Denerim that should anyone try and attack the King that they'd find their life ended by the King rather than the other way around. Still, until he was actually standing across from Fergus on the field, Alistair had been excited at the prospect of sparring; most of his guards had started begging off back in the Capital.

The Teyrn raised his sword, angling it over the top edge of his shield, “I do hope your Majesty is not planning on holding back, I would be disappointed if you were not giving me your best.”

Grunting, Alistair raised his own sword over his shoulder, and then the battle commenced. After the first feints and blows, it invariably came down to the bind. The bind, whether with shield or sword, told Alistair everything he needed to know about Fergus’ intentions. Warding off the Teyrn could be as simple as a turn of his wrist or the press of his shield while landing a strike came with an opening in Fergus’ guard.

A fight no matter the weapon always came down to momentum, leverage, and force and Alistair fell into those familiar rhythms. The push and pull of a sword bind, the clatter of a sword skittering off the flat of a shield, the oafs and grunts of a well-placed blow. It wasn’t until he began to feel sweat pooling in the small of his back that it occurred to Alistair that he had technically ‘killed’ the Teyrn a dozen times or more, yet Fergus kept coming at him, as if determined to find a way past the King’s guard.

Unfortunately for the Teyrn, Alistair had the advantage of being a Grey Warden. If he was sweating, Alistair imagined that the Teyrn was close to being exhausted, not to mention rather feeling rather battered and bruised.

“Hold!” he called at the Teyrn, but the man kept coming.

 _It’s like being back in the Chantry all over again_ , Alistair thought as he brought his shield up, turned aside Fergus’ blow, and swept into the Teyrn’s guard with enough force to send the man stumbling backward, “I said HOLD.”   

“Well,” Fergus stood half hunched over his knees and expelled the word as if he’d been struck in the gut. He took a few more breaths before straightening, “now I know why my sister insisted I never duel you. Your Majesty is indeed most skilled.”

“Thank-you,” Alistair pulled off his padded steel helm and scratched at the back of his head, “I think.”

Fergus lifted off his helm and tucked it under his sword arm as the pages began scrabbling over the hard packed yard to collect swords and shields, “Though, I think I might put sparring with you to the list of things I should not try again.”

Alistair decided to hazard a smile as he began handing off various bits of gear and armor to the awaiting pages, “You did insist I not hold back, my lord.”

“Yes, well as my sister can surely attest, I am not the most brilliant of strategists,” there was a mirthful twinkle in the deep blue of Fergus’ eyes and then the Teyrn became sober and stern. “This may not be the best time your Highness, but I have to ask. What exactly are your intentions towards my sister?”

Taking a breath, Alistair bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, desperate to quell the knee-jerk response that was echoing through his head, _You mean aside from making an honest woman of her?_ It was not a tactical or tactful response, and he needed Fergus to at least to at least tolerate his attempt to win back Aoife.

When the silence dragged on for a moment longer than was probably prudent, Fergus sighed crossing his arms over his chest, “Well, I suppose that your lack of response is a kind of response, though not the one I was expecting.”

“Actually it was more that I was trying bite my tongue, I have this awful habit of saying the first thing that pops into my head, sometimes it’s awkward babbling, other times it’s my foot connecting with astonishing flexibility to my mouth,” Alistair watched the corner of the Teyrn’s mouth twitch, and he pressed on, taking a step towards Fergus as the overburdened pages waddled back to the armory at the far end of the yard. “Surely your sister has regaled you with stories of this exceptional talent of mine?”

A thin, dark smile drew a vicious line across the Teyrn’s features, “Which one? His Majesty has so many. Shall we start with your ability to annoy me or perhaps we should discuss your skill at breaking my sister’s heart?”

Alistair shook his head, tucking his shield arm over his chest, while waving the pointed finger of his sword arm at the Teyrn as he chuckled, “There you see, we’ve not spent five minutes in each other’s company and I am already tasting my boot. But getting back to your question, the least of my intentions involve her not hating me and allowing me to be involved in the life of our child.”

“Is that all?” Fergus raised a single sharp brow, “I would think, your Majesty, would want more out of this excursion from the Capital.”

“You asked my intentions, Teyrn Cousland, and those are my intentions and the intent of this excursion as you so put it,” Alistair felt the gritty force of his voice as he struggled not to clench and grind his jaw. “Now my hopes, those are a bit more elaborate. But if there is one thing I have learned about negotiating is that you come to the talks knowing what you are willing to walk away from the table with, that one bare minimum thing, and everything else is hope.”

Fergus’ eyes narrowed, and his head bobbed slightly, then cocked to the side as he asked, “So what are your hopes?”

Drawing a long breath, Alistair let his gaze go a bit hazy, “I hope to wake up every morning with her in my bed, see her sleepy smile, and wonder if she was thinking about me in her sleep. I hope to have long discussions about the nature of life, simple chats about the day, and even plate throwing arguments about some ridiculous misunderstanding with her. I also hope to get incredibly angry with her, storm off in a huff, and then not speak to her for a few days while I cool down and I fully expect her to do the same to me. And then I hope there is a lot of kissing and making up. I want to feel like I have my best friend at my side and at my back again. I want to marry her; I want to raise our child to be as kind, compassionate, and strong as she is. I have a lot of hopes, Teyrn Cousland, and a lot of dreams when it comes to your sister, but my intentions, well, those are what I am willing to leave here with.”

Fergus swept his sword arm up from his chest to tug thoughtfully at his chin, “You must realize that you will be subjecting her and yourself to a lot of ridicule and scrutiny? There are those in the Bannorn who will applaud your Majesty for doing the right thing once you knew, but will whisper behind your back that my sister is a two copper trollop who is probably lying to you about the child just to secure undue influence on the throne. Some will openly oppose the match, though they will concede that the child needs to be recognized as the heir just to ensure that the Theirin line continues. Others will never accept either my sister or the child.”

Taking another breath, even as Alistair felt his chest tightened with the reminder of everything Eamon had already impressed upon him before leaving Denerim, Alistair asked, “Are you saying that you are against my courting her?”

“Not precisely,” Fergus replied slowly, “no, but from what I understand you already failed to fight for her once. I wonder then, if you are truly ready to see this through.”

“I am.”  Two words and they said everything Alistair wanted. They did not need ring through the yard or grind through his teeth to be true. Nor did they need to be the elaborate cascade of words he just barely finished spouting. He only needed them to sound confident, clear, and true, because his life depended on those words.

Another thoughtful tug to his chin and a brief spark of something, perhaps approval in those clear blue eyes, before Fergus’ lips curled smirking up the left side of his face, “We’ll see.”

Alistair almost protested; he almost stood gape mouth and stuttering at the Teyrn; he almost demanded that Fergus eat his words. Instead he met the Teyrn’s eye and smiled, a small chuckle running playfully through his voice, “Yes, I guess we will, now won’t we.”

The reply seemed to satisfy Fergus and the Teyrn unwrapped his arms from around his chest, spreading them into a wide welcome, “Come, we should change, and probably bathe. Otherwise Aoife will know we’ve spent the better part of the morning battering each other with dull blades and shields.”


	16. "I feel just like I'm sinking, and I claw for solid ground" -Sarah McLachlan

She felt odd.

Something was not quite right, but Aoife could not put her finger on the source of her unease. Physically, she felt unsettled like her skin was just on the edge of the sharp needley tingling of limbs that had been awkwardly cramped for far too long. There was also a dull, ghosting of a headache building behind her eyes that seemed content for the moment to be nothing more than an annoyance.

Otherwise, Aoife was still struggling with what to do about Alistair. Before Wynne had worn down her resolve, Aoife had been resigned to, if not enthusiastic about, a life spent between her childhood home in Highever and her duties as Warden Commander with her child in tow. It would be difficult to raise the child on her own, more so if the babe looked like the King, but she would have Fergus to help her. During the Blight, she’d done far more with fewer resources that the prospect of raising the bastard get of former lover seemed almost easy in comparison. Alistair’s arrival, however, made the cracks in her tower of reassurance and determination show, and the whole structure of her resoluteness threatened to collapse. She had never been under any illusions when it came to her own feelings, as much as she had tried to stop, she knew she still loved him. The feeling had certainly haunted her the past five months, but after the events of the Landsmeet, she wondered if love was enough. However, the inner turmoil of her thoughts was nothing new, so it did not explain why she felt so ill at ease in her own skin.

Petra had been concerned when Aoife came down with a headache earlier in the week. The mage had bit the left corner of her lip, narrowed her eyes, and shooed Alistair out of the library for a good quarter mark while she sent the chill blue threads of magic through Aoife. When she was finished, Petra managed to look both mildly relieved and as just as worried.

The mage was also evasive. She hedged her caution, telling Aoife that everything was fine while still gnawing on the inside edge of her lip. When Aoife finally dragged the matter from Petra, the mage simply told her not to worry, that it was probably nothing, and there was no cause for alarm. It was platitudes and complete bullshit, but Aoife let the mage think she was reassured. The babe was fine. It was the only statement Aoife got out of Petra that didn't come with a dark shadow running through the mage’s eyes. It was the only statement that mattered. Still, Aoife decided not to tempt fate and thus spent most of her mornings abed until the compulsion to move overwhelmed her.

Today, she had managed to make it through almost the entire morning. At first, Aoife read a fanciful romance written by someone calling himself Varric the Storyteller. When she had had enough of its overblown and saccharine plot, she sent for Petra and played a rather one-sided game of chess with mage before switching to Wicked Grace. Aoife played three hands, with the mage managing to win once before the walls of her bedchamber began to loom and press in on her like the damnable tunnels of the Deep Roads.

Aoife tossed her hand across the bed, the cards fanning out in a haphazard arch, “I can’t stay in here any longer.”

Petra looked up from her hand, the corner of her lips pulled up into a small knowing grin, "Honestly, my Lady, I am surprised you lasted this long. It must be close to midday by now."

Clenching her fingers, Aoife rubbed her hands together before sitting up slowly, "I suppose I am just building up a tolerance for it. Maker knows that I will be stuck in here for longer than I'd like once winter sets in and the babe comes."

"Is it really that bad, my Lady?" Petra's voice quavered, reedy and thin. "I've heard the storms of the Waking Sea can be particularly harsh, but I have never experienced them first hand."

"I suppose the inland winters are a bit milder," Aoife shrugged remembering the winter weather she'd encountered during the Blight while rubbing the inside of her palms in an effort to relive the intensely swollen feeling they had developed this morning. "It's the wind, it can shear through you in winter here, driving the rain and snow through the smallest gap in your clothing. Most people just don't bother to go out when the weather's bad. If it's not snowing then there's ice, so it makes travel difficult as well."

Petra's shoulder worked their way up then down as the mage let out a long relieved breath, "That doesn't sound horrible, the way some of the servants talk I thought that there was more to it than that."

Aoife wiggled back and forth making her way slowly to the edge of the bed. She cocked her head, thinking of the stories her Nan used to tell, "Hmm, well there are tales of whole farmsteads being mysteriously abandoned in winter and other odd goings on. But they’re mostly stories meant to frighten the young as they sit around the hearth on a long winter's night."

The Petra held out her hand for Aoife, and she took it, using the mage to steady herself as she finally slipped off the bed. A heady wave of room spinning dizziness had Aoife staggering into the woman.

"Are you alright your ladyship?" Aoife could practically hear Petra chewing on the inside of her lips.

Pressing her eyes shut, Aoife willed the room to still as she took a deep breath. Once the room settled under her feet, she opened her eyes slowly, "I'm fine, I must have just gotten up too quickly, that's all."

The mage was indeed chewing on the left corner of her lip, with her brows furrowed and planted with worry, "Lady Cousland are you sure you are alright?"

"Yes," Aoife said quickly with an exaggerated sigh, and aside from the sudden dizzy spell she felt more like herself than she had earlier. The sensation of discomfort in her own skin seemed to have passed to a dim awareness of wrongness while the headache had died down from a ghostly sensation to a wisp potential pain. But the need to be out of her room was overwhelming.

Petra's was practically sprouting with new lines of worry, but the mage only rubbed her forehead wearily, "Shall we go down to the library then, my Lady?"

"Let's," Aoife bit off the end of her comment, not wanting to try Petra's nerves with a more caustic remark.

The pair walked in a tenuous, if not companionable, silence, which suited Aoife fine. She was suddenly irritable and did not want to snap unnecessarily at Petra. The mage was here as a healer, a ward against the worst possible outcomes of pregnancy, and as such she did not deserve to suffer the blunt brunt of Aoife's temperamental humors. Aoife had no reason for her anger after all, Petra had certainly not done anything to merit the sudden shift in her mood.

As she walked beside the Circle mage, Aoife let the flurry of activity wash over her and pull away some of her frustration. Satinalia was but a few days away and the servants scurried about the halls laden with evergreen boughs, carefully wrapped bunches of holly, and long trailing lengths of ivy. It would not take them long to festoon the hall and every other room in the castle with greenery. The sight brought a wan smile to Aoife's lips as she remember how her mother would stand in the Great Hall, overseeing the arrangement of every swaging garland and leaving no arrangement untouched by her hand. It drove their old Steward to distraction, but Teyrna Eleanor never left anything to chance when it came to the high holidays.

It was the memories of her parents that seemed to catch and steal her breath as she turned the corner that lead to the library. She wobbled putting her hand against the wall of the outer keep to steady herself as Petra own hands snapped out and helped keep her upright.

"My lady, please are you sure you are alright?"

Taking a deep breath, Aoife tried to pull some of the steadiness of the wall into her as if she had the dubious gift of magic. The tingling, unsettled feeling that her skin possessed earlier was creeping through her again. Gritting her teeth against another wave of dizziness that could not be explained away, Aoife looked into Petra's deeply green and very worried eyes. She found it funny in that moment, that she was looking into eyes that almost matched hers in color. It almost made her wonder if hers were as dark, or flecked with gold like Petra's were. Chasing away the scattered thought with a shake of her head, Aoife hoped her thin smile was reassuring, "I think I need to sit down."

Petra's arm slipped around the her back, and helped steady Aoife's footing, "Then let us get you into the Library, my lady, with as much alacrity as we can manage."

Aoife chuckled, "Alacrity, dear Maker, Petra, have you seen me? I am practically the size of a bronto, I doubt I could move with any amount of swiftness even if I wasn't so dizzy."

The slow steady mincing of their trek towards the Library door suddenly stopped short, "You are dizzy, my lady? Since when? For how long, is this the first time or have there been other instances aside from this morning?"

"Dear Andraste, Petra please, are we going to the Library so I can sit, or do you intend to examine me here, under the open sky?" Aoife was running out of patience with the mage, with standing still, with her skin being touched by someone, with the soft light of early winter, and a hundred other things that were suddenly grating on her nerves.

Petra's cheeks turned a deep crimson, "Yes, of course Lady Cousland, you most certainly should be sitting down."

 


	17. "Those three words, Are said too much, They're not enough" - Snow Patrol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throwing this warning out there for the next few chapters: Things are about to become difficult for Aoife and her pregnancy, while I have researched her condition to ensure that her survival does not sound too miraculous, there will potentially be graphic descriptions of labor and all the blood and gore that go along with giving birth without the benefit of modern medicine and hospitals. There will also be some discussion that are a blend of medieval medical terms and my own construction of what a mage spirit healer can sense and describe. This chapter, like the last, continues to set the stage for what's going to happen.

When Alistair had gone down to the marshaling yard with Fergus the castle had been quiet, with barely a servant bustling about. Now it was a frenzied mess of people scurrying here and there. Most were carrying the greenery that was the hallmark of the season. Though the servants seemed merry enough, there was a nervous tremor to the air that seemed to follow the servants as they went about their business. It was as if the denizens of the castle were holding their collective breaths in anticipation of another disaster. Alistair supposed the feeling was to be expected despite the usual revelry that accompanied a high holiday. After all, Ferelden had made it out of the Blight by the skin of its teeth and its recovery would be long.

Wandering down from his room, Alistair walked with Teagan beside him, half listening to the Bann rattle off the contents of Eamon's latest missive. Alistair let Eamon's stern bass color the rich timbre of Teagan's voice until he could almost imagine that it was the Arl of Redcliffe walking beside him. It helped put him in the right frame of mind for dealing with the dispatch from the Arl.

"Much of the Teyrn of Gwaren is a blighted no man's land. I have reports that state entire swaths of the Southern Hills are lost to the Blight. Thankfully, much of the Bannorn was spared as the dividing line seems to be the Drakon River. However, that the farm holds have been spared is of little comfort at present. The cities grain stores were all burnt to ash during the darkspawn attack, and as His Majesty is well aware, we are having trouble meeting the needs of the city and the increasing influx of refugees from the blighted lands to the south. I have taken the steps that His Majesty and I discussed before his Highness decided to journey to Highever."

Alistair found himself nodding along with Eamon's statements. He knew what was coming next, they had argued about it enough before he left for Highever. Personal agendas aside, the ruling of a Kingdom did not suddenly grind to a halt because the King was gallivanting about the countryside. Or at least that was what Eamon had told him before Alistair had left for Highever. That the dispatches began arriving for him barely an hour after he arrived at Castle Cousland only served to confirm for Alistair that his days of happily following someone else's orders were long behind him. Many of the missives he received could be ignored as Eamon flexing his muscles as Steward of the Crown. While others, such as the one Teagan was reading to him, would demand Alistair's immediate attention. Alistair would have rather spent his time completely devoted to his campaign to regain Aoife's affections, but much like being a Grey Warden, well without the whole tainted blood issue, one did not simply stop being King.

"We still need more men to mount a successful Thaw Hunt of the remaining Darkspawn. I have yet to hear from the First Warden about the garrison appointed to Amaranthine. Word from that cursed Arldom is conflicted and the rumors that fly from there border on the fantastical, if they are not out rightly mad. I do hope His Majesty will be able to get a better sense of the situation given that the Teyrn is hopefully more aware of what is happening in his Teyrnir."

He shook his head, Alistair had sent to Warden Commander in Orlais soon after the end of the Blight petitioning the man for Warden's to help with the Thaw Hunt. The fact that they still had not arrived in Amaranthine or sent word to Denerim concerned him. He did not want to think about what political machinations might be going on in Orlais to delay them. Just the barest mention of the Grand Game began to gather tension behind his temples. Celene may have promised his half-brother her support during the Blight, but it came with the implication of a more lasting and firmly cemented political arrangement between Orlais and Ferelden. It was not an arrangement Alistair intended to honor in his brother's place.

"I must remind his Majesty that despite how the situation in Highever may solve the problem of continued lineage, there are pressing matters here in the Capital that need his Highness’ direct attention. His Majesty can ill afford a prolonged absence from Denerim," Teagan snapped the parchment against the air before rolling it up, "Well, my brother certainly paints a rosy picture of things, doesn't he?"

"Hmm," Alistair was only half listening. The grain shortage and the Thaw Hunt had been a plague on his reign since the day of his coronation.

A ration had already been instituted in the capital, much to the grumbling of the nobles, but Alistair would be damned to Void before he allowed the Denerim's elite to ignore the obvious plight of its less fortunate citizens. He'd given the Captain of the city guard full authority of the Crown to assert anyone caught circumventing the ration and told the blackhallers that such crimes were to be considered treason. He would not have the capital falling into madness because a few uptight nobles could no longer count on six varieties of bread when they broke their fast.

The Thaw Hunt was another thorn in his side. Though the Battle of Denerim had been short, the combination of the civil war, the defeat at Ostagar, the battle against the Archdemon, and the migration of refugees fleeing the Blight to the Free Marches and other countries outside Ferelden meant the nation was short on manpower to effectively mount a Thaw Hunt. Alistair could feel his jaw clenching at the thought that the Wardens were being detained by Orlais in some scheme of the Game. A stern note to Empress Celene certainly would not improve relations between the two countries, but he was loathed to consider what Eamon had proposed. Leading Celene on about the possibility he could be convinced to honor Calin's arrangement with her was as abhorrent to him as the arrangement itself.

"Alistair?" Teagan's voice cut through the spin of his thoughts.

"Hmm, what?" Alistair knew there was more snarl in his voice than necessary and he rubbed his brow as he fumbled, "Sorry, Teagan, you were saying?"

"I was asking if you had considered importing grain from the Free Marches?" the Bann's smile was easy, which relaxed Alistair considerably. Eamon was often stern and calculating, with little warmth or humor when he counseled Alistair. It was a nice change.

Sighing, Alistair rubbed at his temples, “Eamon has counseled against importing at this point. There are a few Banns who seem to be hoarding their surplus.”

Teagan's eyes narrowed and his brows rose, “Which?”

“Oswin, Southern, Winter’s Breath, and a handful of others," Alistair rattled off the list of Banns with a heavy dollop of disdain coloring his voice. "Most are those who were far enough north and west enough to never see the main horde. Though Eamon thinks that Dragon’s Peak is also not being completely honest in their reports. He wanted me to personally encourage the Banns to be more forthcoming with their grain before I came here.”

"I can make those overtures on your Majesty's behalf," Teagan tugged at the scruff of his goatee thoughtfully. "Unless you'd prefer I'd stay here, that is."

Alistair could have hugged Teagan at that moment, not that he would, there was a certain amount of Kingly dignity that he did try to maintain, but he let his relief at Teagan's offer shine through, "Could you? I think I have managed some kind of truce with the Teyrn and having someone browbeat the Banns into selling the Crown a portion of their surplus would be a great help. I'll send you with my guards here and Commander Drummond so the Bann's can't argue about your authority. I'll even throw in an official edict.  If we're lucky, it will be enough to prevent food shortage riots in the capital. Now if I could figure out how to recruit more men into the King's guard, we might have a chance at pursuing a Thaw Hunt without relying solely on the Orlesian Wardens."

Teagan cocked his head, his warm blue eyes distant, “You should appeal to the Elves, if you need more men.”

“The Dalish?” Alistair was surprised by the suggestion, but his mind began spinning off ways he could use a negation with the Dalish for aid to secure some of the changes that Eamon though he was mad to consider.

“Perhaps them as well," Teagan shrugged slightly, letting his hands fall back to his side, "but I was thinking more of the those in the Alienages. The late Queen Rowan, my sister, said that there used to be a company of Elves during the rebellion, but they were disbanded after the war.”

“I never heard that."

“Not many have," Teagan's voice was slightly gruff, and Alistair swore he caught his somewhat uncle clenching his left hand into a white-knuckled fist. "Rowan said it was a company that Loghain pulled together during the rebellion. I’m sure the Orlesians remember them, they seemed to make quite an impression on the Chevaliers. But it seems that Loghain had a habit of casting aside things he no longer found useful, like his Teyrnir and his King.”

Alistair caught the attention of a passing servant, as a plan slowly constructed in his mind, if it worked it might slow more than a few problems, "Where might I find the Teyrn, goodman?"

The elf leaned back, confusion knitting his brow and widening his eyes, "In the Library I believe, speaking with the healer, your Majesty."

"Thank-you," Alistair inclined his head at the elf, which only served to startle the poor man more. He sighed, knowing that even though the Couslands were known for treating their elven servants well that not all elves expected the same from every human they meet.

"Shall I accompany you, your Majesty?" Teagan inquired once the servant scurried off in the direction of the kitchens.

"No, I think I can manage requesting that Teyrn Cousland set up a meeting between me and the local Hahren," Alistair clapped Teagan on the shoulder. "Thank-you Bann Teagan. I truly appreciate your help with all this."

"Of course, your Majesty," Teagan's blue eyes sparkled with the grin that spread over his face. "Anything for my almost nephew."

"I’ll catch up to you before dinner and we can discuss how to tackle the Banns further," Alistair smiled warmly back.

Teagan may not have been truly a member of Alistair's family, but Teagan had certainly made Alistair feel as though he was and it made up for his harridan of a sister in all the ways that counted most. So he smiled warmly and squeezed the Ban of Rainisfere's shoulder before watching him walk back up the atrium landing towards the main keep. Chuckling to himself once Teagan was out of sight, Alistair began walking toward the Library and strode with extra spring in his step at the prospect of seeing Aoife ensconced in her usual reading stop as he spoke to her brother.

The door to the Library was a thick slab of hand carved oak, and Alistair nudged it slowly open in case the Petra and Teyrn Cousland were discussing something private. She may have been in Highever primarily for Aoife, but Alistair knew enough about the mage to know she would not ignore a person in need of aid.

As the door swung open, Alistair caught site of Fergus Cousland standing at the far end of the room. His shoulders slumped forward and his right hand cradling his forehead. It was hard to tell the Teyrn's expression, silhouetted against the hearth as he was, but when he spoke Alistair felt like the whole world suddenly went quiet and still.

"I am sorry, Enchanter. I did not think that dragging those memories out would have baring on my sister's condition."

"That hardly matters now, my lord," Petra's voice was full of warm console, but there was a resigned weariness to the way she stood just off to the side of the Teyrn, and it made Alistair's heart lurch as he waited barely breathing to hear what she would say next. "What's done is done, and the only thing I can ask of you is that you warn your daughters should you ever remarry. Conditions like this seem to run somewhat in the blood, if there is a cause for them at all.  I have done what I can and the Teyrna is resting. With closer monitoring and the tonics I have brewed, we may just make it another week, two if we are lucky."

"And if we are not?" Alistair's voice cracked, bouncing hollow off the stones of the room.

Fergus and Petra turned. The Teyrn looked wrung out, face sagging, and eyes hazy while mage gave Alistair a wan smile.

"I will do what I can, but it will be in the Maker's hands," for as softly as Petra spoke, Alistair felt like each word was a dagger twisting in his gut. She turned back towards the Teyrn. "I would send your swiftest runner to Kinlock Hold, your lordship. If the worst should come to pass, it would be prudent to have another healer here."


	18. "But underneath we're not so tough, And love is not enough"- Nine Inch Nails

Aoife looked down at the mirrored box.

It sat heavily, indenting the down coverlet of her bed. The ornate silverwork of trailing vines and twisted branches that held the mirror panels in place had long since tarnished and the individual mirrors themselves were all crazed and fogged in their own unique pattern. Someone had pried off the sapphire that had adorned peak of the box's roof-like lid while the blue velvet lining was worn down to bare frayed threads and still held a lingering scent of smoke. She didn't remember who gave it to her, whether it had been her mother or her father, but she knew it had been in the family since the days of Teyrna Elethea. It was a small mercy the long narrow box had survived the sacking and looting of the castle.

When she was younger, the box had held her most dear trinkets and treasures, a white gull's feather, a pale coral bruised shell, a sea star so small it fit in the palm of her ecstatic eight-year-old hand. The things she had kept in the box were long gone, victims of Howe's raid, but they had been replaced with something as equally precious.

She lifted out the singular content of the box, careful not to prick herself on it's still sharp thorns and inhaled deeply. It still amazed her that the rose had survived for so long. During the Blight, after it became apparent that the flower was neither wilting or blooming further she had asked Morrigan about it, wondering if Alistair had choked down his disdain for the wilder witch and asked her to preserve it in some fashion. He had not, but Morrigan had sensed something odd about the flower. Wynne posited that it might have been touched by some sort of spirit, but neither she nor Morrigan were able to come to an agreement on how the rose had survived for so long without fading or drying up. Even today, almost a year to the day when Alistair had given it to her, the rose was still just on the cusp of blooming, with deep velvety burgundy petals and a heady perfume.

When she first returned to Highever, she had almost forgotten the rose was in her pack, tucked carefully into a simply wooden box she had picked up in some nameless hamlet they had passed through on their way back to Redcliffe after visiting the Circle of Magi. Still raw and aching from everything that had happened since the Landsmeet, she had almost tossed the flower, box and all, into her hearth fire. Wynne had stopped her, though, taking the box and keeping its contents safe until Aoife could stand to look at them again without feeling angry. She never knew who found her treasure box, but when she finally asked for the rose back it had come tucked inside the mirrored box. The collision of old pain with new had the box sitting on the mantle of her hearth, becoming nearly the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing she looked at before she tried to sleep.

"How are you feeling?"

Aoife looked up startled more by the fact that she had been so engrossed in her memories that she had failed to hear the door open than the fact that Alistair was staring at her from across the room.

He took a step farther into the room, his eyes at first narrowing and then widening with wonder, "Wait...is that the rose I gave you?

"It is," she watched as Alistair came closer, as if the flower had the same pull on him as a fire had for moths.

"Maker's breath," he whispered, stopping at the edge of her bed and reaching out his hand to just barely brush the velvet petals with the tips of his fingers. "It still looks like it did the day I picked it. Did you have Morrigan or Wynne do something to it?"

"No," she could feel the barest spike of irritation in her voice. She wasn't sure if it came from how his eyes continued to stare down at the rose, the fact that he was even in her room again without being asked, or growing wave of terror that had been building since Petra had her brother carry her back to her room. It was likely all three.

Alistair sat slowly and gingerly on the bed's edge, still looking at the rose, "Then how is it still..."

"I honestly have no idea," Aoife sighed, placing the flower back in the silverwork box and setting the lid over it, "Do you really want to discuss all the possible theories as to why the rose is still in one piece?"

"I just wanted to see if you were alright," his honey brown eyes finally tore themselves away from the box and found her own.

"I'm fine," it was hard to keep her tone neutral and she folded her hands together in her lap to keep them from shaking.

"No," his voice was stern as he held her gaze, "you're not."

"Really?" she let a brow arch up as she inclined her head, cocking it to the side and letting just a hint of annoyance twist at the corners of her mouth.

"Really," he echoed, his hands reaching towards hers and falling just short. "I remember what you were like in the Brecilian Forest, after the fight with that, what did Wynne call it? A reaper or something?"

"A revenant."

"Right, that was it," there was a ghost of a smile on Alistair's lips and for a brief moment his eyes went distant, looking through her and at some half-remembered moment. When they cleared, his gaze settled back on her as he continued, "You hate bed rest, you hate anything that confines you. Wynne practically had to keep you sedated for an entire two weeks just to get you to heal. In fact, I think she told me to sit on you once, if you even tried to move."

She almost let herself smile, remembering how much of a terror she had been, "That sounds like something Wynne would say."

"It does, doesn't it," his smile turned from a fragile ghost of a thing into a genuine grin until something fluttered darkly through his eyes, turning light honey to a dim clouded amber and replacing the grin with a something just shy of a remorseful frown, "Look, I just want to say that I should have shouldered some of the burden during the Blight. I see that now. It was unfair of me to place all the decisions on you without being a capable second-in-command, which I wasn’t."

"Alistair...," her fingers scrabbled, it was hard to resist the urge to touch him. She had forgiven him this at least, long before the Landsmeet was even called.

"Let me finish," he cut her short, startling her into silence as he took her calloused sword hand into his. When she did not immediately pull her hand out of his, he let out a low sigh, "I thought that breaking things off was the best thing to do. I did not want to subject you to the rumors and everything that would come with being my queen and never being able to produce an heir. If I had know you were already carrying I.."

Aoife pulled her hand from his as if it had been burned, "So, you would have fought for me if you'd know I was with child and still thrown me over if I wasn't?"

"No, that's not what I meant," his hands twitched as he shook his head.

Aoife tucked her hands over her chest removing them from his reach, "Isn't it?"

He sighed, pulling his hands back towards his lap, "Aoife please, I'm trying to apologize."

"By telling me that you would have still left me if I wasn't with child?" She scoffed, her voice all stony edges. "How is that an apology? Did it even occur to you that I might not care what the court would think? Or were you afraid you wouldn't be able to stand up to Eamon?"

"That's hardly fair," he said quietly and she saw how his sword hand curled and his jaw became hard.

"I think it is. Whatever you think of Eamon, I seem to recall reading a letter where he was trying to persuade Calin to set Anora aside on suspicion of her being barren," she wished she was standing, it was hard to be angry with the same amount of force when you were sitting in a bed. Alistair's mouth began to gape open, but she cut him off quickly with an accusing thrust of her finger, "The fact of the matter is that you made a decision about us without even talking to me first. You never asked for my opinion, or if I even had one, you just dropped everything about Grey Wardens being almost incapable of having children and your need for an heir in my lap. And then you had the gall to top it all off with how hard it was going to be to leave me."  
"It was, it is." He snatched her stabbing fingers out of the air and held them fast. "Maker's mercy, Aoife. I love you, I never stopped. It was foolish of me to think I could stop. There hasn't been a day since then that I haven't regretted walking away from you."

She had closed her eyes to hold back tears, and tucked her lower lip just under her teeth to hold back her ire. Breathing slowly for a moment, she opened her eyes slowly, "It's not enough."

Now it seemed it was his turn to drop her hand as if it had caught fire.


	19. "Did you ever really love her, Or was it that you feared letting go, You should have known that you could trust her"- Bridy

Alistair felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, and for a while all he could do was stare at the mirrored box.

The silence lingered and became a thrumming tension between them. It would be easy to feel angry, to give into the heat rising in his cheeks, the crush of his fingers into a tight ball, and yell. Then there was the voice in his head, the one that doubted, the one that wallowed in the knowledge that he'd always be alone. It was an easy mouth to feed and with all the loneliness of years spent in Isolde's cold shadow and it had certainly grown fat off the isolation of being given to the Chantry and the Templar. He pinched his eyes tight hoping to drive it back, but it forced its way to the forefront of his mind all the same.

 _See_ , it whispered, you don't deserve her, you never deserved her. Little alone Alistair, _even the cat knew you weren't worthy, why did you think she'd be any different?_

He didn't have an answer. There was no snappy retort, no witty repartee, there was just his anger and his doubt. It had been foolish of him to speak of his hopes to Teyrn Cousland the other day. Saying things out loud made them real, made him want them more than was prudent. He should have kept his mouth shut, then maybe he would have walked into her bedchamber this morning with his heart firmly in his chest, ready to negotiate the terms of his acknowledgment of their child. Instead, he had come to her with his heart on his sleeve, bleeding with his love for her, and so easily crushed.

The rasping of cloth drew his attention back to Aoife, sitting propped against a mountain of pillows. She had pulled the box back toward her, one hand grazing the jagged peak of the lid while the other rested on the swell of her womb, rubbing small circles on an area just below her ribs. He could see the strain between them. It was in her eyes, the way they were wrinkled in the corners and the thin drawn line of her lips, with her teeth just barely peeking out the left corner of her mouth.

"I should go," the words fell out of him, leaden and heavy.

Aoife nodded as he stood, trying to hide from him the slight flinch that that shuttered through her, "Leaving again?"

He supposed that he deserved the bitter and resigned slap of her words, but he had to ball his fists and press them against his thighs to keep from screaming. As it was his words rasped out of him in a way that reminded him of how he sounded when she had stepped out of Flemeth's hut all those many months ago. The feelings may have been different, but the sound was the same, "No, never, not ever. I just...need some time to think."

And then he turned on his heel and left her room. It was a quick, clipping walk that he was desperately trying to keep from being a storm. Though in truth his feet seemed to be doing much of the thinking about where he was going and how fast he was going to get there, and if the servants startled in his wake, well, he failed to notice them.

In the end, as the clouds of his frustration burned away, he found himself in the marshaling yard shooing away an over attentive page as he gauged the weight and heft of cruelly edged pole-arm. He shrugged himself quickly into a chain shirt before wandering over to the practice yard.

Teyrn Cousland's guards made way for him, whispering behind half covered mouths about the bastard prince who was now King. Some of the whispers even ventured to suggest that the King was Lady Cousland's paramour. All the rumor and innuendo swept around him, feeding the maw of his doubt and self-deprecation. He slammed the butt of his weapon against the ground and the crack of the metal capped oak against the hard-packed dirt of the yard seemed to scatter the guardsmen like a murder of crows.

Alistair took a breath, gripped the pole-arm forcefully and then began. He worked his muscles through the exercises he learned during his Templar training. There was something different about wielding a pike that was at odds with his proficiency with sword and shield. Maybe it had to do with having both hands wrapped around his weapon. Whatever it was, it helped him work through and not against the riot of his emotions. Though he loathed to think of himself being forced down a path he neither desired or enjoyed at the time, he could not fault his Templar training. It had saved him from becoming a far angrier man.

He wasn't sure how long he whirled about the yard, but his muscles were finally beginning to protest and strain against movement. With a dull thud, Alistair slumped against the curtain wall that ran along the section of the yard he'd been training in and let his head fall back against the cold stones. He stood there, hands almost numb with how tightly he gripped the pole-arm. Above him, gulls circled and dived through the air and for a while he lost himself in the way their flight danced against the hazy azure sky.

Eventually, he leaned the pole-arm against the wall next to him and let his weight carry him down until he was squatting over the dirt beneath him with his arms slung over each knee and his head hung low. His hair was matted firmly to his scalp and the doublet he had not bothered to take off was sodden with sweat under the chain shirt he'd thrown on more for the comforting weight of the armor than actual need. He wiped his brow trying to clear some of the sweat that was now rolling down his face.

The crunch of gravel under a booted foot reached Alistair's ears, bring the still void of his thoughts back to his surroundings.

"I take it speaking with my sister did not go as planned, your Majesty," Teyrn Cousland's hearty voice battered him, reminding him of his failures.

Alistair looked up, sweat rolling off his forehead again and stinging in his eyes, "No."

"And?" The Teyrn raised a single brow as he crossed his arms over the rich sapphire brocade of his jerkin.

Pulling himself up wearily, Alistair gripped the pole-arm once more, using it to leverage himself against the weary stiffness of his body, "And what? I'm not sure there is an 'and' anything,"

The Teyrn's mouth drew into a thin scowl as his eyes narrowed. He shook his head, hard eyes never looking away from Alistair's, "Well then, you've already lost the war, your Majesty. A pity, I was rather looking forward to a wedding."

Alistair scrubbed his hand over his face, not able to meet Fergus Cousland's gaze a moment longer as he whispered, "So was I."

"If your Majesty no longer intends to attempt to win back my sister's affection, I suggest you leave," the Teyrn's words were a rapid staccato, and each of them lanced through Alistair's heart as if they were an expertly aimed throwing knife. "You are not welcome at Castle Cousland otherwise."

As the Teyrn began to turn sharply on his heel, Alistair pinched his eyes tight, his words a visceral gasp, "She said it wasn't enough, my love...it wasn't..."

The sound of gravel crunching underfoot stopped. Alistair heard the Teyrn sigh, a long low rumbling thing that sounded both heavy and resigned, and then there was a familiar warmth of hand resting on his shoulder. It startled Alistair, reminding him of quieter moments of close confidence with Duncan before the battle at Ostagar, and he snapped his head up sharply. Through the haze of his sweat and tear strained view, the Teyrn was looking at him, brown eyes now soft and glazed with the man's own sorrows.

"It never is, Your Majesty, but that doesn't mean it's not a good place to start.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all once again for the well wishes. I am back to writing. Chapters may come slowly though as the emotions get heightened and I am working with two really wonderful Beta readers to improve the work, so along with the next chapter there will be a massive update fixing grammatical errors and such


	20. “If silence can heal, I know it can kill.” - Elizaveta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had to pull this chapter out, it just would not flow out all nice and orderly. Anyway, who would you like to see turn up as the extra healer- Wynne or Anders?

Aoife stared at the heavy tapestry that canopied her bed while Petra fussed about her. She gave the mage healer non-committal responses, a 'hmm' here or a grunt there, along with an accompanying nod or shake of her head to help clarify her meaning, but she let no words past her lips. She wasn't sure she could.

Over and over again, she saw Alistair sitting on the edge of her bed. The King of Ferelden seemed to have caved in on himself and she felt her heart twist at the thought of causing him such pain. _But_ , whispered her darker thoughts, _he had walked away from her first hadn't he?_ He had pulled away, not believing that they could weather whatever the future held for them. Even when she had attempted to understand why he'd done this to her, he'd given her nothing but excuses and platitudes. She had tired, sweet Maker, she had tried to forget him, to focus on ending the Blight and when that was over, to put her energy into building a life for herself and the child growing in her womb. But thoughts of him persisted.

Her father had always told her that it did no good to dwell on maybes, but like a shadow, the maybes and what ifs had haunted her for months. And now they were threatening to drown her.

"My Lady?" Petra's voice intruded on her thoughts.

"Hmm," Aoife looked up, and noticed that the mage was sitting in the same spot Alistair had sat in yesterday.

The mage gave a small sigh, even as her eyes stayed soft and her voice remained warm, "Have there been any more birthing pangs?"

"No," Aoife tried to put something more into her words than the hollow monotone that rang in her ear. She grimaced, rubbing her right side again, "The babe just seems to be climbing under my ribs today."

Petra's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned, "Which side my lady?"

"The right,” Aoife shifted her body against the mountain of pillows behind her, trying to find a more comfortable position that would ease the pressure the babe was putting on her ribs, “though last night it was the left."

The mage reached over and Aoife bit her the corner of her lip as the slightly skin crawling feeling of Petra's magic accompanied the mage' hands on her belly. Petra left them there for what felt like an age, before pulling them away and shaking her head slightly, "You'll have to take a higher dose of the tonic I made you. It's not having the effect I would like."

"Fine." It was another monotone response, but it was all she could muster.

"My lady is anything wrong?"

"I...," Aoife hesitated. She liked the red-haired mage and had come to think of her as something of a friend over the past few weeks, but she was not Morrigan nor was she Wynne. Despite what Petra might know about Aoife’s relationship with Alistair, the mage did not have Aoife's trust in the way her old companions did. "I don't really want to talk about it, Petra."

"Of course my lady," the mage's shoulders seemed to sag as she rose from Aoife's bedside, and it wasn't until she was almost halfway across the room that she turned around, looking tall and planted back at Aoife, "but at the risk of sounding impertinent, I think it takes a great deal of courage to come back to someone you hurt and try to make things right. And this strain you are under is not good for you or the babe."

Aoife sighed, "It's not likely to go away anytime soon, Petra."

"I know my Lady," the mage gave her a thin smile. "I will be by later with more tonic, try and get some rest."

Rest could be an elusive and tricky thing as far as Aoife was concerned. Sometimes it crept in on cat’s paws and left her feeling revived. Other times it sat heavy on her chest, haunting Aoife with an illusion of being awake and leaving you more weary than you were when you had laid down. And then there were the more frequent occasions of needing rest and not finding it at all. After Petra left, Aoife felt as though she had experienced an odd combination of all three. She was not as tired as she had been after Petra had seen to her, but she did not remember falling asleep and was fairly certain she had been mostly awake all morning.

There was a sharp knock at her door, and she let out as relieved breath, “Come.”

Her brother peered around the door, inching in open by degrees. Aoife let the barest sliver of a smile wander over her lips as she heard Pook barking excitedly in the hall.

“Oh just let him by, Fergus, he’ll whine at the door if you don’t,“Aoife pulled herself up against the pillows, bracing for the inevitability of a large and exuberant mabari hound galumphing through the room and up on to the bed. “What are you doing here?”

Fergus managed to grab Pook’s collar before the dog had a chance to bound over to the bed. Hunched over and dragged along by an animal that stood nearly as high as Teryn’s own waist, Fergus huffed, “Would you mind telling this beast not to wrench my arm off, you know he only listens to you?”

Pook gave a low growl and Aoife clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth as she looked sternly down at her hound. The dog hung it massive head and sat back on its haunches, letting out a small whimper as it did.

Letting go of Pook’s collar now that the dog was sitting, Fergus dusted his hand off on his breaches and smiled warmly at Aoife, “I thought I would come dine with my sister, unless you would rather I find someone else to keep you company?”

“No, of course not,” Aoife let her hand hang over the edge of the bed, finger lazily finding that one spot behind Pook’s right ear once the dog’s cold nose connected with her olive branch. “I just wasn’t expecting you until later this afternoon.”

“Ah,” Fergus sat slowly down on the end of the bed, “about that, it seems I promised Bann Teagan that I would give him a tour of Highever,”

Aoife smoothed her hand over Pook’s brow, giving the dog permission to lay its head on the bed, “The Bann of Rainesfere has never been to Highever?”

“Yes,” Fergus said quickly, to which Pook let out a huffing snort, “well no, he’s interested in some of the improvements I have made to the city’s fortifications and would like to inspect them.”

“Hmm,” Aoife went back to teasing Pook’s favorite scratching spot, “so I take it that means you are forfeiting your King?”

“Never. I have asked Alistair to play in my stead,” Fergus paused, his soft sorrel eyes leveled at Aoife’s, “if that’s alright with you?”

Aoife pulled her hand away from Pook’s ear, shushing the dog as it let out a low whine, “His Majesty is still here then?”

“I think his Majesty will be here for the foreseeable future, Aoife, unless you directly come out and tell him to leave.”

She began to open her mouth, but found that she had nothing to say. Instead, she pulled her hand back into her lap. After Alistair had left her room the other day she wasn’t sure that he would remain at the castle. Though she had not exactly told him that there could be nothing between them ever again, she had not given him hope that there could.

Fergus leaned over the bed and took her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze, “I believe he is sincere in his affection for you sister.”

Aoife’s huff was somewhere between a growl and a sliding sigh of annoyance, “Sincerity has never been His Majesty’s problem.”

“What is then?” Fergus gave her hand another small squeeze. “Anyone who has eyes, sister, can see that you still care about him. So what’s stopping you from giving into his advances?”

She’d been thinking about this question for nearly an age. She’d certainly been thinking about it since Alistair left her standing in the doorway of the dining hall back in Arl Eamon’s Denerim estate. She’d contemplated it for hours after Wynne left with that letter she’d written tucked into the mage’s belt pouch. It worried her as she walked the halls of the castle anxious and slightly dreading the sound of approaching horses. And now, she mulled it over as she stared down at her hands.

“Trust,” she said finally, wincing slightly with how the word echoed off the walls of her bed chamber. “I respect him. I always did, even when other members of my party did not. He’s a good man, an intelligent man, but I don’t trust him anymore.”

Fergus nodded, his fingers leaving hers to swept stray locks of her unruly ruddy hair back out of her face, “Then you need to tell him that and decide whether or not you want to give him a second chance dear sister.”

 


	21. “And it was good, it was right, But time changes and feelings can die” - Natasha North

It was a mistake to agree to take Fergus’ place. To begin with Alistair had only the vaguest notion of how to play chess. It wasn’t a game that was taught to young impressionable stable boys. He’d been curious about it when he had been sent to the Chantry, but only the boys from the richer families played and none of them would have been caught dead teaching him. Now that he was King, Arl Eamon had decided it was high time he learned, but Alistair was still very much a novice.

Then there was the fact that he had been avoiding Aoife for the past two days. He knew it probably wasn’t helping his case. In all likelihood, his current course of inaction was probably confirming everything she had thought about him since that fateful moment in Denerim, but he needed time to think. He needed time to figure out what to do now that his love was not some magical panacea that would instantly fix things between him and Aoife. He needed time to puzzle out what she meant by love not being enough. He needed time to come to grips with the idea that he might have already lost her. He needed more time than he actually had to decide what to do next if that was indeed the case. And time was not on his side in this, but he at least had till after the midday meal to ponder it all a bit more.

He pushed open the door to the great hall.

“I don’t care if you are the Queen of Antiva, no one, be they mage or beggar, will be locked in Castle Cousland's dungeon without provocation!”

Alistair looked up, startled out of his reverie by Fergus’ bellowing. At the head of the hall, the Teyrn stood, feet planted wide and arms crossed firmly over his chest. Bann Teagan stood just a half step behind the Teryn, his hands folded neatly behind his back. Both men glared at a pinch-faced female Templar with a dull brown bun gathered tightly at the base of her neck. Behind her stood a mage in an aquamarine splint mail coat, with of all things, feathered pauldrons. The man looked slightly rakish in the coat, with his blonde hair pulled into a low ponytail. Of course, it didn’t help Alistair's impression of the mage that his hands were shackled and his eyes seemed to be taking a great interest in the floor at his feet.

“My Lord,” the Templar’s voice was as firm and unwavering as Dwarven stonework, “this mage has escaped from the Circle Tower seven times. Knight Commander Greagoir only agreed to allow him to come in Enchanter Wynne’s place because she could not be spared.”

“That and I can heal circles around the old battle-axe,” the mage grumbled just above a whisper.

The Templar looked over her shoulder and glowered at the mage, who simply shrugged and smiled brightly back at the sour-faced knight.

“If I remember correctly, mages are not allowed out of the Tower without dispensation from both the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter,” Alistair walked slowly into view of the group. “I assume, since you are here, that those formalities were observed?”

The Templar gasped, hastily taking a knee and dragging the blond-haired mage down with her, “Your, Majesty! I had no idea...Yes, Your Majesty.”

Alistair stood in front of the Templar, his feet planted wide and his arms crossed over his chest, mirroring the stern agitation of both the Bann and the Teryn, “Then unshackle your charge.”

The Templar’s face snapped up as if she had been hit, “Your Majesty...as I have been trying to explain…”

Fergus stepped forward, his voice thundering through the hall, “You would dare to contradict the King in my keep, Ser?”

The mage sat back on his heels, his shoulders jumping like dried corn kernels on hot coals and his mouth buried deeply into his hand as Fergus railed at the Templar’s slight against the Crown. Alistair gave the man as stern a look as he could manage as he barely kept pace with the Teyrn’s rant, but Alistair feared that he only managed something mildly conspiratorially as the mage sucked his lips between his teeth and pantomimed locking them, shoulders still shaking with mirth.

“....you are dangerously close to finding yourself in the cells of my castle!”

“I’m sure the Templar meant no disrespect, Teyrn Cousland,” Alistair said smoothly, knowing that his grin was a bit too large for the situation at hand. “If I may suggest, the Templar should at least be allowed to station as many guards as she felts are prudent outside the mage's room? And that the mage be in the presence of a Templar at all other times of the day? Would this be amenable Ser…?”

“Bridgette, your Majesty.”

“And?” Alistair raised a brow, really the standards in the order must have gone down since he was forced into the Chantry. “Would these terms be acceptable Ser Bridgette?”

The Templar paused and glanced furtively around the room, “Yes, your Majesty, as long as I am allowed to approve his rooms and inspect them at regular intervals while he is here.”

Alistair looked back over his shoulder at Fergus, “Teyrn Cousland?”

Waving his hand, the Teyrn hissed, “Fine.”

“Well, now that that bit of negotiation is out of the way, I suspect that you will want to make arrangements with Teyrn Cousland’s steward?”

Ser Bridgette stood, yanking a bit too forcefully than necessary on the ropes that connected her to the mage. For his part, the mage seemed to be expecting this and mockingly stumbled forward with such flamboyant exaggeration that Alistair wondered if he had had lessons from Zervan. The Templar merely glared icily at the mage who was now standing as if nothing at all had happened.

“You may leave your charge here, Ser Bridgette. I sure you wish to see to the rest of your company and to ensure that your accommodations are to your liking,” Alistair was trying very hard not to laugh at this point.

“I would rather take the mage with me, Your Majesty,” the Templar turned away from attempting to murder the blonde-haired mage with her stare.

Bann Teagan stepped down from the dais, his hands still tucked behind his back and a tugging curl of a smile on his lips, “You are aware that despite the fact that His Majesty never took vows, he is indeed a fully trained Templar?”

“No, my Lord, I was not,” Ser Bridgette looked over Alistair with narrowed eyes.

“Well,” Alistair shrugged, “it’s not something that Grand Cleric Elemena goes announcing around Denerim. But I can assure you, Ser, your charge will be secure in my care.”

Alistair noted the straining of the Templar’s knuckles, but she stepped up the mage and released him from his bounds, “Were might I find your Lordship’s Steward?”

“I believe Ser Drustan is in the marshalling yard this morning?” Alistair looked over at Fergus.

“He is, Your Majesty.”

Ser Bridgette bowed stiffly, “By you leave then.”

And with that the Templar marched rather loudly out of the hall.

“Well, she’s going to chew me out later,” the mage rubbed his reddened wrist for a moment before Alistair felt the familiar tinge that told his that mage was begining used. “Nice to know that no matter the scenery some things never change.”

“Yes, well, no that that unpleasantness is over...” Bann Teagan began, his voice cut off by the appearance of Petra.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your Lordship, but Lady Cousland wanted to know….Anders?” Petra’s light green eyes went wide as an abundant grin turned her cheeks rosy, “Maker’s mercy, Anders, what are you doing here? I would have thought you’d be halfway to Orlias by now, seeing as you were due out of solitary at the end of last week.”

The newly monikered mage laughed, “Irving and Wynne decided to send me here, and Greagoir saddled me with old battle-axe Briggette. Otherwise I be on a boat to Rivain, or at least trying to get on a boat to Rivain.”

Moving over to where the men stood in a rough circle, Petra shook her head, “More than likely you would have ended up at the Pearl again.”

“Can you blame a man for trying?” Anders warm brown eyes hazed as he seemed to stare off into the fire at the end of the hall, “You know I managed to make quite a bit of coin until the Templars swooped in and dragged me back to the Tower.”

Alistair watched as Petra cocked her head and gave Anders a sly grin, “I can blame you for a lot of things, Anders, but trying is not one of them.”

With a feigned exuberance, Anders snapped his hands over his heart, “Oooh, ouch, Petra, I think I might feel that jab for at least another hour.”

Alistair was content to watch the two mages banter, but Fergus cleared his throat, “Am I to understand that you know this man, Petra?”

The red-haired mage continued to smile at the man she had named Anders, “I do your Lordship,  he maybe the unluckiest of the Circle’s escape artists, but next to Wynne, Anders is one of our best spirit healers.”

“Such a ringing endorsement Petra, I’m practically speechless with gratitude.”

Petra arched a brow, wrapping her arms over her chest, “Just consider it an unusually lucky day for you, Anders, the Knight-Commander could have sent Rylock with you.”

“Ugh,” Anders rolled his eyes, “thankfully that lovely woman was otherwise engaged.”

“Petra,” Bann Teagan interjected, “Didn’t Lady Cousland ask you to deliver a missive?”

“Sweet Andraste,” Petra looked away from Anders and gave a short bow to Fergus, “I am so sorry your Lordship. Lady Cousland wanted to know if you would be joining her for her midday meal or heading out with Bann Teagan.”

“No, not after this mornings delays,” Fergus rubbed his brow, “though I suppose I should see her before I leave as it is likely we will not be back before supper.”

Bann Teagan turned slightly towards the Teyrn, “Shall I see to the horses, then?”

“If your would, Bann Teagan, I shouldn’t be long,” Fergus looked over at Alistair and gave him a brief nod, “Your Majesty.”

Alistair inclined his head, “I will try not to embarrass you this afternoon, Teyrn Cousland.”

Fergus smiled and it startled Alistair with its warmth, “Well you could hardly do worse than I have. Since Father taught her how to play I haven’t won a game yet.”

“I will bare that in mind, your Lordship.”

“Good,” Fergus nodded, “Now if you will all excuse me, I have a sister to bid farewell to.”

“I’m afraid this is my cue to exit as well,” Bann Teagan said solemnly, giving them all a brief nod.

Alistair watched the Bann and the Teyrn walk out of the hall, barely listening to the renewed conversation between the two mages, as sour, sick feeling began to grow in his stomach.

“I trust the weather did not make your journey here too difficult?” Petra’s words just barely registered as Alistair returned his focus to the mages.

“Oh it was delightful, I’d hardly even remember that I was tied to my saddle the entire trip. And Bridgette is such a marvelous conversationalist, all those glares spoke whole volumes of contempt and disdain. I think I could live off those glares alone the next time I end up in solitary confinement,” Anders’ blithe sarcasm brought half a smile to Alistair face, but the man soon sobered as he clasped his hands together with a loud crack, “Now, would anyone like to show me the patient? Or am I expected to perform miracles of magic form the Great Hall?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is rough, my betas have not picked-over all of it and introducing a new character is always difficult halfway into a narrative. But I feel like I have been neglecting you all. I hope it's good and I hope I did DA:Awakening Anders justice - no pun intended!


	22. “Sometimes people make the wrong moves, Walking in the wrong shoes” - Rae Morris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that refused to be written and its rough, so be prepare for typos and such. I've cleaned it up as best I can for now. I need to get back in the habit of posting and doing things for myself.

Aoife sat in front of her hearth, a tall and tufted footstool keeping her feet off the floor and an ebon and ivory inlaid chess table stood just within her reach. She’d been reading most of the morning, picking her way through a crime novel this time. It was hard to believe that it was the same author of the sappy romance that she had perused some weeks ago. The writing style was completely different, tighter, less overblown and cliche. She wasn’t sure she’d enjoy it, but Petra had insisted she give it a try. It was becoming a surprisingly enjoyable way to pass the time.

Fergus had slipped in and out of her room for brief moment, relaying the events of the morning with animated agitation and overblown pantomime. Aoife found herself smiling at the idea of Alistair out-playing a Templar. It was nice to hear that he had perhaps grown a backbone, even if it made her wish he’d developed it sooner. The thought sat hard and heavy on her chest, and she tried vainly to finish the chapter she had been reading before Fergus stopped in to see her.

Pook snuffed loudly from his place by the fire. Looking over the top of her book, Aoife smiled fondly at the mabari, who was lolling on his side and pawing at the air. She let her gaze soften and her lips curl winsome and wry at the cuffing huffs of her sleeping mabari till she finally gave up the pretense of reading and folded her book into her lap. The sleeping mabari chuffed, pawing at the air once more, then suddenly perked up, swinging his head toward his mistress with stiff and alert ears. Looking over her shoulder and around the back of her armchair, Aoife set her book slowly down on the ivory inlay table as Pook rose without a sound and planted himself square with the door frame.

Aoife shifted awkwardly in her chair as Pook’s lips curled into an unvoiced snarl and felt her hand wrap around the dagger she keep hidden in the tufted back of her chair. As she drew the knife slowly from its sheath, Pook’s head ticked to the side and his tongue lolled eagerly out of his mouth. Aoife let out the breath she’d been holding and clicked the dagger back into place. It had been months since she had felt this jumpy, but lately she’d been falling back into old habits.

Alistair’s voice clenched around her heart first, “You can’t be serious. You want me to believe you’ve escaped the Tower seven times?”

“Anders is shaping up to be Kinlock Holds most infamous escape artists,” Petra's voice was warm. Aoife could practically hear the pert grin the mage probably had on her face, “but it’s mostly for how horribly bad he is at it. The Templars always seem to find him a week or two later, drunk in some tavern. The First Enchanter and the Knight Commander always try and teach him better for it, but the lessons never seem to stick.”

“Well,” the third voice was a different tone and pitch from Alistair’s deeper baritone and Aoife could only assume that it belonged to the mage Fergus had described earlier, “I can see that this little breath of freedom is going to be delightful.”

“Oh, calm down Anders,” Petra’s voice carried a heavy sigh with it, “you know I’m only teasing.”

“Teasing, she says,” the voice called Anders tossed the words into the air with an irritated and arch nonchalance, “Lesson’s she says. Ha! Like spending a year in solitary for wanting to be more than a caged rat was really necessary.”

“You did break the rules, Anders,” there was a sternness in Petra’s tone that reminded Aoife of Wynne.

The was a rather annoyed huff, and a barely contained chuckle before a smart rap sounded off her door.

Aoife sighed. She was not quite in the mood for visitors, especially the ones now outside her door but there was nothing for it. “Come.”

Petra entered the room first, followed by a man Aoife could only assume was the other mage Fergus had mentioned. He was tall, with soft brown eyes, and dirty blonde hair that was tied in a manner that reminded Aoife vaguely of Duncan, though the mage was far too pale to be of Rivani decent. The random connection to a man long dead drew upon memories that Aoife rather she forgot, and she had to stifle the urge to shudder in their wake. But she could not show weakness, not with Alistair lurking in the door, and certainly not after he’d been avoiding her since their last conversation.

“My lady,” Petra’s voice wandered in between Aoife’s darker thoughts and pulled her back into the moment at hand. “My lady, I would like to present Anders of Kinloch Hold.”

Aoife let her lips curl into an appraising grin, one that Fergus often told her made men wonder if she was debating whether or not to kiss them or skin them, “Anders? I think I remember Wynne telling me about an Anders. Aren’t you the mage that’s spent more time in confinement than any other mage in the history of the Ferelden Circle?”

The mage called Anders paused something shifted swiftly over his face before his lips turn upwards in a slim grin, “Ah, I see my reputation precedes me, charming. Though I do hope the old battle ax had at least something nice to say about me.”

Aoife ignored the way Alistair shifted in the doorway and seemed to hover on the edge of walking into her room. She smiled at Anders, remember a bit of what Wynne had once told her about the man, “Only that she never understood all those failed escape attempts given your deft grasp of Circle politics. I think she also mentioned you were a tolerable spirit healer as well.”

“Ha, she would say that,” Anders’ chortled, tossing his head back as he strode to her chair. "The old biddy always had trouble swallowing the fact that I exceeded her as a student."

In the corner of Aoife's eye, Petra tossed her head and folded her arms with an undignified snort.

Aoife felt the fabric of the chair pull when Anders gripped the winged back, and he looked as though he was swinging a sword with the way he cast his other arm at Petra, "You were her student too, Petra. You know how she pushes you and magic as a healer. How she grudgingly doled out praise when your attempts far outstripped her feeble demonstrations. You can't honestly stand there and deny it."

"I think," the flame haired mage's arms seemed to press tightly around her chest, and her words were measured and clipped off with ice, "I would have been a little more tactful and respectful of my mentor in front of Lady Cousland."

For a moment Anders mouth gaped as a reply hung on the edge of his tongue, but he swallowed it with a thin humming and his attention swung back around to Aoife. He gestured towards her womb, “May I?”

She nodded, wishing that she had more of an understanding of Circle life than she had gleaned from Wynne.

Anders’ hand settled softly on her stomach as his magic slipped through her veins and over her skin with a warmth that reminder Aoife of Wynne. Without the slight discomfort that came with Petra’s probes, Aoife found herself drifting sleepy against the current of Anders’ mana.

“Is she suppose to be nodding off like that.” Aoife smiled at the worry that raised the edges of Alistair’s voice, as she hazily focused on his face. It seemed closer than she remembered it and her thoughts flowed along familiar lines. The thin scar just under his chin from a Hurlock’s blade, the harried worried lines of his brow, and the deep bantering lines that framed his lips.

The first time he kissed her it was bashful and shy, barely a kiss. She had to lean in, press her lips harder against his for it to deepen into something more. And it was over sooner than she would have liked.

Alistair had looked at her, then down at his feet, his face flushed and uncertain, “That...that wasn’t too soon was it?”

She had smiled at him, she knew that, but what she had said was muffled in the growing heaviness she felt.

“Well, I’ll have to arrange that, then, won’t I?” his eyes flooded with an almost overwhelming brilliance as his finger twined with hers, and when he spoke again his voice was whispy and cracking on the edge of breaking, “Maker’s breath, but you’re beautiful, I am a lucky man.”

Aoife felt herself whimper as something shot through her with a lancing pain, and then the whimper turned into a low sob as Alistair seemed to dissolve in front of her, his voice harring her from every possible direction. “I could see it becoming very hard to tear myself away from you. Impossible even. If this is what must be, then...I have to do it now. I’m sorry.”

She wanted to scream, but her mouth did not appear to amenable to that function. _Not this, please, not this again_ , she stumbled forward as she tried to force the words from the depths of her lungs.

“My duty isn’t going to stop being important to me, I can’t change who I am. I...I wish I could, I really do.”

Aoife tried to hold back her tears, sucking in hard on her bottom lip and pinching her eyes tightly shut. She tried to stamp down on her emotions, to remind herself of her brother and his care, of Wynne and her concern, and even of Morrigan with her cold and practical console. Anything to drown out Alistair’s voice assailing.

“There are things more important than want I want.” The words cracked over her and she crumpled under the weight of them.

A light broke across the darkness, warm and gentle like the soft glow the early spring sunrise over Highever. It worked its way around her, brushed at the tears on her cheek, and cooed softly in her ears, murmuring soothingly words that Aoife only half caught.

By Andraste’s light, she was tired. Scraped out and hollowed anew, she settled into the welcome darkness that comes with a dreamless sleep.


	23. “Staring at the sun, a love so strong it hurts” - Anathema

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again- another rough chapter, but hey I'm posting again, which I count as a win after my hiatus with this story. I have lots of hand written drabbles for this that just never felt right.

Alistair paced hurriedly into the room as Aoife’s eyes fluttered and lost their focus and barely restrained himself from grabbing Anders by the arm. His words lashing out through clenched teeth, “What are you doing?”

“I am attempting to assess the needs of my patient your Highness,” Anders’ groused bitingly, eyes rolling in Alistair direction though he barely looked up from Aoife’s prone form. “I generally like to know what’s going on with them before I start making treatment recommendations. There’s less chance of death that way.”

“Anders,” Petra’s voice registered to Alistair right, even as his gaze remained firmly planted on the mage in front of him. He grasped feebly on the reins of his Templar training, and felt a quivering shard of a strike within him.

“What? I’m not going to sugar coat it for him just because he’s the King,” Anders looked up this time, eyes focusing on Petra.

“May I remind you, Anders,” Petra moved just within Alistair’s vision, her voice stern and her hands planted matronly on her hips, “that His Majesty is the reason that you aren’t trying to assess Lady Cousland with a gaggle of Templar watching your every move and Ser Bridgette hovering with barely contained smite?”

“Fine,” Anders eyes rolled slowly over behind his half closed lids before they finally looked up at Alistair. “Your Majesty, I am using my manna to determine what is causing her symptoms.”

Alistair let go of his pathetic strike, it wouldn’t have done much anyhow. He tried to remember Eamon’s lessons in diplomacy since the mage hadn’t actually answered his question, “But why is she falling asleep? She’s never fallen asleep like this before.”

A huff left Anders mouth, and for the first time since he entered the room, Alistair noticed the sweat beading on the mage’s brow, “Wynne sent me your Majesty, which means Lady Cousland’s situation is far beyond her abilities to handle and Petra’s quite frankly have been a stop gap, now please would most kindly shut up, your Regalness, so I can concentrate.”

Alistair lifted a tightly clenched fist, his mouth dropping open as he tried to compose a suitable retort.

“Your Highness,” Petra’s hands fell lightly on Alistair’s forearm and he looked away from Anders, “though his manners are less than desirable at the moment, he is telling you the truth. Lady Cousland is very ill.”

“Just find somewhere sit, your Highness,” Anders went back to looking down at Aoife, his hand swirling over her body in some arcane pattern that made little sense to Alistair. “She’ll need to be observed for a while after I’m finished anyway.”

Alistair took a step backwards and felt the back of his knees hitting the edge of a stool.

Pook apparently had had enough of being ignored during his exchange with Anders and decided to butt his head against the mage while giving the man a low growl.

Anders grunted sharply as the light of his magic flickered, “Andraste's knickerweaselsels! Someone please keep that walking arsenal out from underfoot!”

Alistair hissed out a sharp whisper and Pook whimpered, lumbering slowly to his side. He took hold of the mabari’s collar as he sat on the stool behind him, while Pook nudged his enormously heavy head onto Alistair’s lap. Alistair found that his fingers went absently to scratch that one spot behind the mabari’s left ear. He could wait. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done this before.

Even as he watched Anders intently, his thoughts were months away from this moment. At that time, he’d been pacing a circle around Aoife’s tent. They’d run across a small band on darkspawn on their way back from Kinloch Hold. No one noticed at the time, but Aoife had taken a rather deep cut from a genlock’s poisoned blade during the fight. She hadn’t said anything, wanting to get back to Redcliffe before Connor had a chance to get out of hand again.

She’d put everything on the line that fortnight just to ensure she didn’t have to watch another mother and child die.

Alistair swiped his hands over his face, ignoring the plaintive whine from Pook.  His memories determined to remind him of how much of an ass he’d made of himself after Morrigan had successfully driven off the demon that had ensnared Eamon’s son. It was almost as bad as the confrontation he’d had with Aoife on their way to the Circle Tower.

Andraste preserve him, he tried to block out the memories of her stumbling forward after he’d made another of his asinine jokes. He’d been so focused on his gratitude that he hadn't noticed the way she winced when she laughed, the subtle sheen of sweat on her brown, or the ashen pallor to her face. They’d almost lost her when she finally collapsed onto him, feverish and festering not a full candlemark after having saved the Arl’s family.

Morrigan had been furious that he’d failed to noticed her wound. Wynne, so newly acquainted to the party, had not yet learned how to manage his lack of civility when it came to his interactions with Morrigan.

_Maker’s breath_ , he chided his memory. He’d been more of hinderance than a help in those first critical moments. Moments that dragged into worry, doubt, and a generous helping of self-loathing as Leliana dragged him away from the two mages and Aoife’s prone body. They were moments that seemed to drag on with an ominous sense of permanency and silence, even as they were the moments that Alistair realized he thought of Aoife as more than a good friend.

Someone shook his shoulder lightly and his hazy gaze glossed over Petra’s warm face and meek smile, “Would you like anything, your Highness?”

Alistair looked back over at Anders. The mage was wiping his forehead with a scrap of cotton. His shoulders were slumped forward and he seemed somehow smaller than he had in the Great Hall.

“Actually,” Anders looked over his shoulder, his eyes looked worn and sunken in the firelight, “if his Majesty wouldn’t mind, I could use his help, and yours Petra before you scurry off for my jailers.”

Something hard flashed in Petra’s eyes before she turned towards Anders, “Of course, Anders, what do you need?”

Anders waved his hand over Aoife’s still sleeping form, “She needs to be in her bed and I’m spent. Bridgette has the keys to lyrium they brought with us and I was too entertained by his Majesty’s display earlier  to ask for any before she stormed off.”

Petra’s eyes went wide, “You idiot! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“The patient always comes first, Petra,” Anders’ shrug barely qualified as movement, and then his eyes sought out Alistair’s as he nodded over the distance between Aoife and her bed, “If you wouldn’t mind, your Highness.”

Alistair pushed himself up. It was awkward lifting Aoife’s limp figure out of her chair, but thankfully he didn’t have to carry her far. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Anders flopping unceremoniously into the now unoccupied chair. Petra glared icily at her fellow mage as she scurried to arrange the pillows behind Aoife as Alistair laid her down gently. Once they were finished, Alistair dragged the dressing table stool he’d been sitting on to Aoife’s bedside.

Petra was looming over Anders, her hands squarely on her hips. For his part, Anders had settled his hand comfortably over his chest and was doing his best impression of being asleep. Alistair shook his head and shuddered, suddenly reminded of a time when both Wynne and Morrigan had loomed over him in just such a manner. He did not envy the recumbent mage.

A narrow slit crept open along Anders’ eyelids, “Are you going to stand there all day?”

“You could have asked,” Petra’s voice was shrill and pitched with exasperation, “the state you’re in…”

Alistair shook his head again and turned back toward Aoife. Her face was calm, a peace that was rare, as the nightmares that came with being a Warden had always been stronger for her. Her head turned towards him with a soft sigh and he dared the indulgence of her hand as she continued to sleep soundly. As he watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, the prattling of the mages on the other side of the room became nothing more than a distant buzzing.


	24. “And you held me near/ I keep my eyes closed/ And you, you didn't leave/The truth doesn't matter for now” ~ Love Like Birds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting to this point took longer than I thought it would. Again this a rough post, with edits to follow.

It was dark when Aoife opened her eyes again.

The fire had long burned down to coals, casting flickering shadows along the walls of her room. For a while she simply stared up at the canopy of her bed. Her right hand felt warm and gently held. It didn’t surprise her, she’d woken up so many night to Fergus’ hand twined in hers that it had been unusual these past few weeks to wake up any other way. She supposed it had something to do with the tonics that Petra had been giving her.

Aoife shuddered catching on the remains of her nightmare. It had been a long time since she had that particular dream or a version of it anyway. With Alistair here, she supposed a relapse was inevitable. After all, he was still haunting the halls of Castle Cousland far more effectively than his memory had. It was odd to think of him as still physically within the castle. With her less than cordial reception of him and how disastrous their last conversation had been, Aoife was surprised that he remained. The winter storms would be setting in any day now. If he didn’t leave soon, Alistair risked being essentially trapped in Highever for another two months or more. She did not imaging Eamon would be pleased with that prospect, ruling from Highever would certainly delay anything the Arl had planned for the milder winter season in Denerim.

Fergus was right. She needed to decide whether or not she could let herself trust Alistair again. He seemed determined to stay, despite his setbacks and it would irresponsible to lead him on. The Blight and Loghain’s mad grab for the throne had left Ferelden too vulnerable for its King to be seen as inattentive.

She picked at the thread of her coverlet with her free hand, wishing her emotions were as easily plotted as line of attack, defense, and withdrawal. It would make thing so much easier.

A sleepy mummering sounded off along her bedside as the grip on her hand tightened briefly. She smiled, turning her head towards Fergus and was met with a set of hazy amber eyes and tentatively lopsided grin.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Not trusting her voice, Aoife shook her head.

Alistair yawned, letting go of her hand as he stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders. Settling back into his chair, he reached his fingers out as if to touch her face before snapping them back into his lap, “You should get some more rest. That Anders fellow is likely to have my head if he thinks I woke you.”

“You… what are….,” Aoife stumbled over her words, as they seemed unwilling to form a competent sentence. Her cheeks felt warm under his slightly smile as she finally snapped her tongue back into place,“Where’s Fergus?”

Alistair looked up towards the high gabled window of her room, “It started raining shortly after you fell asleep and changed to snow just after midday. Ser Drustan doesn’t think it’s likely to let up till sometime tomorrow. He suspects the Teyrn will stay at the manor house in Highever for the evening and then attempt a return to the castle during daylight.” His smile boarded as he looked back at her, “Are you hungry? I can send for some food.”

Aoife shook her head again, shifting against her pillows so that she was slightly more upright, “What time is it?”

“Just past tea. The cook said she’d have a tray ready whenever you woke. You should eat something if you’re going to stay up for a while.”

She looked down at her hands, out across her room, and then back towards him, her voice quiet and small, “Alistair, why are you here?”

“At the moment, I’m here because Petra dragged Anders off to dinner, or possibly the baths, and you are apparently not to be left alone right now,” he leaned over and tented his hands on the edge of her mattress, “But, I suspect that is not entirely the answer you’re looking for.”

Her fingers began worrying the intricate thread work on her coverlet again, “Not really, no.”

Alistair took a deep breath and looked into Aoife's green eyes, "I suppose I’m still here because I’m hoping that I can fix my mistake."

"I..” she stumbled on the words, as she continued to watch her finger pull at loose threading, “I don't know that you can. You hurt me a great deal Alistair.”

"I still love you, Aoife," his hand covered hers, halting its nimble unraveling.

"You loved me,” she looked up at him then, feeling her eyes start to tear, “and you still left me after the Landsmeet."

“I suppose I deserve that. I let my fears and insecurities get the better of me and you're right I should have spoken to you,” Alistair’s smile thinned, but he didn’t uncover her hand. He took a breath, Will you at least answer one question for me?”

Aoife let her eyes roll along the edges of her lower eyelid as she sucked on the left corner of her mouth, “Ask.”

His finger tucked themselves under hers, “Do you still love me?”

She sighed, trying to resist the urge to curl her fingers around his. "Even if I do, and I am not saying that I don't, it still might not be enough."

His voiced hummed in response to her tentative answer.

_This is it_ , she thought blinking slowly and hoping the tears she felt welling in her did not begin rolling down her cheek, _this is where I lose him again_.

She almost jumped when his hand tightened around hers. His voice low and thick,"Was it enough for your parents?"

Aoife let out a long breath as she tried to quell the riot of her emotions. How did she explain her parents' marriage? Did she say that it was arranged? That they had barely spoken more than a handful of words to each other before they were betrothed? That friendship had come slowly over the year long betrothal and that love came later? How did one go about explaining the relationship between two people as seen from the outside? Is wasn't like she had been party to her parents innermost thoughts about one another. There had just been this sense when she was growing up that her parents cared deeply for one another and respected one another's judgment. It wasn't perfect all the time. They had some terrible arguments and Aoife even remembered a time when her mother spent an extended period at Bann Loren's estate, ostensible visiting Lady Landra, but she had overheard the servants gossiping at how she had left the Teyrn in a fit or wrath. How did one encapsulate that? And how did she explain it to Alistair?

She chewed on the inside of her lip, worrying it as she searched for something to say. The silence was beginning to strain between them, and Alistair’s shoulders were beginning to sag even as his hand still held hers.

Finally, her mind dragged out an old memory. It didn't truly do justice to all the complexities of her parents' marriage, but it was a start. "My father used to say that my mother was his best friend, someone he could always count on to tell him when he was being an ass."

Alistair gave her hand a gentle squeeze, "Then we start there."

"What?"

"You were my friend first Aoife. There's been so many times these last few months when I missed you because I just wanted to talk to you. To have someone understand my humor and not look at me like I had sprouted two heads or gone mad."

"Could you live with that?” She turned toward him, her eyes searching his face for doubts she held in her heart, “Us just being friends, and nothing more?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. My gut tells me no, it would kill me never to hold you again, to know..." he swallowed hard, "that someone else might make you happier than I did. But I suppose I'd have to be or risk losing you all over again, and that would most certainly kill me."

“And our child?” She held his gaze again as she pulled her free hand over her womb, noticing how his eyes tracked the movement, “They’ll be your heir as long as you don’t disown them. Eamon will certainly want the throne secured.”

Alistair’s grin turned down at the corners at the mention of Redcliffe’s Arl, “Eamon can rot on the matter. You know how much I wanted the throne, I won’t push my crown on the child.”

She began to push the matter, but Alistair cut her off, “Aoife please, I’ll acknowledge them, but I won’t press a crown onto their head.”

Aoife narrowed her eyes. The was a determination in his look that she hadn’t seen since he had dueled Loghain. She shook her head, allowing herself a small chuckle and an ever smaller smile, “The Bannorn will positively riot.”

“Yes, well, I’ll duel them all on matter if I have to.”

“Ha,” she laughed, picturing Alistair fending off a field of terrified Bans and feeling lighter than she had in months, “I doubt any of them will be eager to take up the challenge after seeing how you handled Loghain.”

“I suppose I could sit on my throne with my sword and shield in hand.” Aoife felt Alistair’s thumb sweep back and forth over her wrist. There was a crack in voice when he spoke, “I’ve missed this, talking to you.”

She meet his glassy amber eyes,“I know.”

He took a breath, leaning back with the force of it and slipping his hand off hers, “You should eat. I’ll call the servant in the hall.”

“Alistair,” she grabbed his forearm and found it solid and warm under her fingers.

“Yes,” he stopped half way out of his chair.

“I never stopped loving you either.”

He smiled at her, as he caught and pressed his lips lightly to her knuckles, “I know.”


	25. Clarity

Alistair pulled them up short of the camp, “Alright, I guess I really don’t know how to ask you this.”

“Hmm,” Aoife looked up at him, dragged roughly from her thoughts. There was something of a startled rabbit to him, eyes wide and looking everywhere but at her and his brow glistened with the light of their lantern. She couldn’t think of anything in their routine check of the camp’s perimeter that would have startled him so, and she certainly didn’t sense any darkspawn nearby, “Alistair, are you alright? You’re sweating.”

“No!” He looked down at his shuffling feet, cheeks reddening, “I mean yes. I mean...I’m a little nervous, sure. Not that this is anything bad or frightening or...well yes.”

She gave him a smile, hoping to encourage him on. Having traveled with him for the past several months, she learned that sometimes he needed to ramble before he got to his point.

“Oh, how do I say this?” Alistair looked at the ground and seemed to scuff at an imagined rock. 

Aoife waited a moment longer, then looked a small step forward. He looked up, arms swinging about, “You’d think it would be easier, but every time I’m around you, I feel as if my head’s about to explode, I..I can’t think straight.”

“You know, Alistair, that’s really rather sweet,” she tucked her hands behind her back and gave him a bright grin.

Aoife hadn’t thought it possible but he blushed harder, red spreading wide across his cheeks the words rushing out of him in a tumult, “Oh umm, well. Here’s the thing: being near you makes me crazy, but I can’t imagine being without you. Not ever...I don’t know how to say this another way. I want to spend the night with you. Here in the camp. Maybe this is too fast, I don’t know, but...I know what I feel.”

She blinked, not really knowing what to say for a moment, “Are you sure?”

He stepped closer to her, his hands slipping down her arms till there finger where tangled, “I wanted to wait for the perfect time, the perfect place...but when will it be perfect? If things were, we wouldn’t have even met. We sort...of stumbled into each other, and despite this being the least perfect time, I still found myself falling for you in between all the fighting and everything else. I really don’t want to wait anymore. I’ve...I’ve never done this before.You know that. I want it to be with you...while we still have the chance. In case…”

“Alistair,” she tugged one of her hands from his and pressed a finger to his lips. “You don’t have say anything more, I agree.”

His eyes went wide, “Oh, I um...”

Aoife pressed up on her toes, setting her hands on Alistair’s board chest, “Just kiss me.”

Something of the wild-eyed rabbit left him as his lips crashed down on hers. They’d kissed like this before, mouths moving in a heady tangle of teeth and tongue, but Alistair had always backed off when they the came up for air. Now he pulled her closer, crushing her against the studded leather of his gambeson as his mouth moved down her neck.

“You know,” Aoife bit back a squeal as Alistair’s hands tweaked her ass, “we should probably move this to my tent.”

“Hmm,” his fingers began worrying the edge of her leather breeches.

“Well,” she mused breathily. Alistair was using everything he’d learned about her body from their other walks to his full advantage. “I suppose we could stay here, but I’m fairly certain Shale will be walking by eventually, it is her time on watch.”

“Maker’s breath,” he snapped away from her, looking for all the world like he’d been caught red-handed in the larder.

She giggled, pulling him so she could kiss him just behind his ear, “Come on. I doubt anyone is still up anyway.”

Blessedly, she was right. The camp was quiet save for the grinding march of Shale. The golem paused, watching them as they crossed the camp to her tent before grinding along its nightly watch path.

Alistair gave a small groan, “Wonderful.”

“Shale’s not about to go running off to tell Morrigan, if that’s what you're worried about, Alistair.” Aoife looked up at him from where she was pulling the canvas of her tent out of the way.He stood in the hazy moonlight looking at Shale’s retreating shape once more looking like some startled woodland creature. Aoife sighed as she tugged on his hand, “We don’t have to do this now, Alistair. We can try another night, or maybe the next time we find an inn, or wait until you…”

Maker.

She’d forgotten how fast he could move. He practically barreled them into the tent, and she can’t help the giggles that escape her when they landed in a tangled pile. Alistair grunted, his bashfulness creeping up his neck and reddening his cheeks. She bit back another laugh and leaned up to kiss him.

A sleepy and gruff woof reminded Aoife that Pook had found his way into her tent again. Her hound had warmed to Alistair, but in her experience, it was never very helpful when he was present for more intimate relations. He had barely tolerated it with Dairren after all.

Alastair on the other hand was ignoring the mabari, too focused on getting her out of her clothing. His lips had left hers and were nipping along the column of her neck as his fingers undid the leather ties of her gambeson. She shuddered, trying not ruin the moment with what she hoped were covert commands to her hound.

Pook was having none of it and huffed, loudly.Alistair froze.

Alistair froze.

“Pook, out,” she hardened her words, made them sharp and crisp so her hound would know there was no arguing.

The mabari huffed, a low grumbling sound before shifting his paws forward and stretching before he rose. He gave Alistair a hard glare before padding out of the tent.”

“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Alistair sat back on his heels and ran his hand through his hair, “the thought of Morrigan giving me a look tomorrow or the one I just got from your dog.”

She leaned up, running her hand along his jaw till she had enough leverage to pull him towards her, nipping at his bottom lip between breaths, “Do really want to spend the night discussing Morrigan and my hound?"

Alistair looked down at her with a warmth that made her shudder and tense, “I suppose not.”

Dairren was an accomplished kisser. He knew how to tease his tongue along the line of her lips in such away as to coax them open with a soft groan. He knew how to tip a head back and pull it close so that the press of lips deepened. He knew how to work his tongue, how to plunder and pull, how to draw things out till her lungs burned and her skin was on fire. He was equally skilled with his fingers. Practiced hands knew how to ghost over skin, how to pile ties, how to unravel bands, and work her into a panting frenzy moments away from the fall. 

As a lover, Bann Loren's son knew what he was about. What lines, what looks, what innuendos would best serve to entice and bring her around. It was game, but at least they both knew they were playing and for what stakes. He wanted standing, she wished freedom to set her own course. She knew she would never be the only one to warm his bed. He knew better than to make it obvious. Aoife had come to terms with their arrangement. And then Blight rose in the south. And then Howe stacked her family’s castle, leaving her the last of her line.

Aoife didn’t want to make comparisons, especially now. Alistair was most certainly not Dairren. But they came to her unbidden. The way Alistair's hands fumbled about until she caught them and gave them a place to rest. The way his lips brushed so lightly against hers that it could barely be considered a kiss until she leans in for more. The way he stumbled about the catches of her gambeson, the ties of her breeches, the tug of her boots until he was almost defeated by her armor or simply terrified by the prospect of them both getting undressed. Alistair was not an accomplished lover. He tripped over his words, and his innuendos were more likely to make her smile than simmer.

As he fumbled with her and found his end far more quickly than she did, she felt something give way in her. A bit of resistance, a bit of fear, and a fair dose of caution wrapped up in Wynne’s fireside admonishments. It helped her return the love she saw in his gaze. It loosened words from her tongue that she never thought she’d ever say in honesty. It gave her the clarity to know in her bones that was growing between them was far removed from the games she played in Highever. And for that she is grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this post. Alistair and Aoife are a bear to write when it comes to intimate scenes like this one. I feel like this has too much telling and not enough showing in it and it's shorter than I'd like but I can't fiddle with it anymore, Anders is giving me enough of a headache in the rough draft of the next chapter. And then there's the update of all updates that will hopefully catch any final grammar and continuity errors. Also, a bit of housekeeping if this might be triggering for anyone: labor will be happening within the next two chapter, if everyone plays nice.


	26. “And then we'll understand we held gold dust in our hands”~ Tori Amos

A girl in leathers. That’s what he remembers. A girl in leathers, her wild chestnut hair bound in a thick braid. A girl with freckles dusted across her nose and cheeks who had a sardonic grin. A girl in camp issued leathers with a longsword and dagger on her hip that looked worthy of a Teyrn. A confident stride, a pair of hard sapphire eyes, and a breathless beauty. She had walked across the courtyard toward him. He had almost lost his train of thought, almost tripped on the words he was badgering against the Mage he’s been sent to harry, almost stopped breathing.

Jory and Daveth were backwaters common next to her. Lummoxes who used their weapons as battering rams, never with the fluidity of someone who is the weapon as much as the weapon is them. Duncan’s small praise in his hasty dispatch to the camp did not do her justice. She cut through the darkspawn out in the Wilds with a single-minded determination.

He remembers how easy it was to talk to her. How he marveled that he’d been able to coax a thin, tiny smile that reached her eyes and made them sparkle. He remembers instant infatuation tempered by grief forged itself into rough camaraderie. Words he said that he’d wish later to take back, wild jealousies that simmered in him but he could barely name. Moments away from him that he both admired her for and quietly resented when he still couldn’t parse how he felt. Her quiet discussions with Morrigan, her practice sessions with Zevran, her debates with Sten, her talks with Wynne, her giddy gossiping with Leliana, her postulations on the nature of life with Shale. Everything that made her remarkable to him, everything that made her who she was.

And then he’d almost lost her, twice. Once to the Blight, her own ghosts, and stubborn pride. Once to his own stupidity and insecurities. He silently praised the Maker that they were talking again. Halting conversations now that she was confined, and mostly concerned with the weather, but they were something. It was a start.

“Wynne told me something about the two of you, you know.”

Alistair looked up from his cooling pottage and across the table to where Anders lounged, with a Templar for a shadow. He didn’t have much of an appetite this morning anyway, “Oh.”

“Hmm,” Anders sucked off his spoon, pulling it thoughtfully out of his mouth before digging into his bowl again, “Never thought there’d be anything more scandalous than a bastard on the throne, but here we are.”

“I’d be careful, Ser Mage,” Alistair sat back his chair, eyes flicking up to the Templar. The man regarded him with a blank expression. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d trained as a Templar.”

“I know,” Anders gestured at him with a spoon full of thick Fereldan oats. “You realize we can feel it when you draw on whatever it is you do. It’s kinda of like having a sword or knife hovering just above your skin.”

Alistair blinked, remembering his fumbled smite, “Sorry, I didn’t realize…”

“Why would you?" the snap in Anders' voice practically crack through the room. "It’s not like the Chantry’s know for picking Templars for their ability to be compassionate.”

He leveled his eyes with the Mage, “I never completed my training.”

“Really?” Anders set down his spoon with slow care as if it was something precious. And then Alistair was reminded both of Wynne and Morrigan as Anders' lips curled into a wide, almost rictus grin, “Do you want a medal? I’m sure the King...oh wait you already are the King. Sorry, no medal for you.”

He ignored the Mage’s jab, even as he noticed the Templar fold his arms over his breastplate, “I don’t think I would have even if I hadn’t been recruited into the Grey Wardens.”

“What changed your mind?”

“A Harrowing actually,” Alistair felt a slow chill come over him. How long had it been since that day? Two, maybe three years? And yet the memory rose, clear-cut and crystal in its clarity. The blank hollow eyes of the young boy, only a year or so younger than himself at the time. The blood slowly pooling. So much promise. Wasn’t that what the First Enchanter had said after the Knight-Commander said they had given the boy more than enough time. He’s not coming back, a hollow pronouncement for what it meant. Alistair spent the month haunted by the boy's round cheeks and scrub brown hair as he scrubbed out pots in the scullery for talking out of turn. “It was...well one was enough to show me that I’d never be a good Templar.”

Anders stared at him, eyes narrowed and sharp, before he picked up his spoon again and dug it back into his porridge, “At least you had a choice in the matter.”

Alistair leaned forward again, steepling his hands on the edge of the table, “I’m trying to negotiate more autonomy for the Mages here, you know. And a new Tower, somewhere the Veil isn’t so thin. Your fellows did the Circle credit during the Blight, they deserve recognition for that.”

“Ha,” Anders barking laugh rang through the hall. His Templar guard jumping ever so slightly at the sound. The Mage himself took no note, as far as Alistair could tell, but continued to chuckle until tears streamed down his face.

“I fail to see how this is funny, Serah Mage. I am trying to help,” Alistair felt his cheeks flush as Anders continued to laugh, and he hoped he wasn’t turning into a splotchy mottled mess in the process.

Dabbing the corners of his eyes with his napkin, Anders heaved a wheezing sigh, “Hahh. You really haven’t thought this through have you? What happens then, your Highness? Does a Mage merely have to prove their worth through some life threatening act of heroism? Then what? You’ll set them free. Forgive me your, Highness, if I don’t hold my breath on that one.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Alistair rose from the table, not waiting to see if the Mage bothered to stand, and clipped his way briskly through the keep.

Mages and Templars and ages of Chantry fueled antagonism. He was a fool to think it would end with a simple gesture of goodwill. It shouldn’t have taken a Blight to make him see that mages had as much right to freedom as he did. And Anders had a point. Even in Ferelden, where the Chantry’s grip on politics and policies was not a tight as it was in Orlais, there was only so much he could do. He could only hope it was a step in the right direction.

Wrapped in one of his heavier cloaks, he stomped out his frustration along the curtain wall of the castle. Teagan had left almost as soon as he had returned for Highever with the Teyrn, not willing to risk the possibility that another storm might trap him in Castle Cousland for the winter. Alistair almost wished he hadn’t sent his almost uncle off to wrangle the Banns into gifting the crown with their surplus grain. If it wasn’t Ser Brigette grating on his nerves with her holy implications that he was a disappointment to the Templars, never mind the Grand Cleric, then Anders sardonic humor and sarcastic contempt left Alistair wondering if the man took anything seriously. The Teryn, himself, was not in the best spirits either, having his household invaded not only by Alistair and his vanguard but a small horde of Templars that bordered on the absurd. It left Alistair somewhat at loose ends when he needed vent his frustrations, or have someone read him one of Eamon’s increasingly strident missive so he didn’t just crumple the thing out of hand.

Alistair leaned against the parapet wall, looking out at the smear of gray clouds that lined the horizon before turning to look back at the keep. Aoife was certainly up by now and probably beginning to chafe in her confinement. It wouldn’t help him sort through the correspondence that was still waiting in his rooms, but it was a better distraction than trudging along the battlement with a storm on the way.

He barely measured the time it took him to cross the inner bailey and reach her room.

Aoife sat on the Orlesian style chaise Fergus had moved into her rooms once Anders had restricted her to its confines. It gave her somewhere other than her bed to recline and was wide enough that visitors could sit opposite her without disturbing her rest over much. In the scant four days since their last in-depth talk, Alistair had yet to sit on the thing, not wanting to presume such intimacy with her yet. Besides, it was easier to trounce Aoife at chess in one of the smaller side chairs that the Mages used when they came to examine her.

Smiling at the stray remembrance of how shocked she’d been when he’d managed to beat her the first time they’d played, Alistair walked over to Aoife. His fingers twitched, wanting to settle on her shoulder so that he might bend down place a kiss on her brow. And so he clapped his hands rigidly behind his back so as to avoid the temptation, “How are you feeling today?”

She looked up from the hoop of needlepoint that rested in her hands, “I’m sitting here, picking out the mistakes in my stitches, and woefully regretting that my knives are all down in the barracks. How do you think I feel?”

The smile on his lips broadened, “Bored, then?”

“Painfully,” she tossed the offending hoop onto the other end of the chaise.

He pulled over a chair, “Shall I regale you with stories of my misspent kingship?”

Her lips settled into a smile so familiar that it stabbed his heart with its easy mirth, “I suppose there are worse ways to spend my time.”

“Ah,” he covered his chest, hands splayed wide over the dark brown of his doublet, hoping that the jest was enough to hide his hopes even as he could feel color mottling his cheeks, “you wound me, my Lady.”

“I did no such thing,” she rolled her eyes and swatted at his knee. The trace of her fingers lingered longer than they should and felt scaldingly hot to Alistair as her voice became earnest, “And I’d love to hear them, Alistair. Most of what I’ve heard from the court has been colored by my brother’s uncharitable opinion of you.”

“Well,” he had to remind himself to breathe, pushing his words out at a measured pace, “it’s not like he didn’t have cause.”

“True,” he caught the shadow in her eyes as her shoulders slumped a bit. She chewed the corner of her lip before she spoke and Alistair found himself holding his breath again, "but I wasn’t exactly honest with him either.”

“Oh.” The air seemed to flood out of the room and his eyes opened and closed slowly, blurring his sight for a moment.

“He assumed you knew about the babe. I didn’t bother to correct him till you showed up.”

Her words rushed out at him. He could feel his hands tighten, the sudden wave of anger that surged over him, attempting to drown him. But he was mostly relieved, the thoughts of what her sudden confession might be were far worse than this. He offered her a wry grin as she let go of a long held breath of her own and settled back against the chaise, “Well, that certainly explains a lot.”

“You’re not angry.” It’s almost a question on her lips, soft and bewildered.

He shrugged, “I’m not sure I have a right to be. I mean what you did or didn’t tell your brother is something that’s more between the two of you than it is between you and I. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’m glad you told me.Now, shall I tell you about the food shortages in Denerim or beating Eamon around the head until he gave Valendrian a seat on the city council and let me declare him Bann of the Alienage?”


	27. PSA: On the State of the Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PSA about the story and future updates

I apologize to the readers that clicked the link hoping to see a new chapter and to my subscribers. Since this is the only way I engage with many of you, this is the platform through which I can update you on the state of the story.

There will be no new updates to this story or any of my other works for the foreseeable future. While I hesitate to say that the story is dead and will go unfinished, I am butting up against several problems with my health and personal life that make it incredibly hard for me to write, and when I do write, I am mostly producing poetry to help me process some of the things I am dealing with.

Back in March, I lost my job. While that loss was something of a blessing at the time because I saw a brief return of my creativity and I was able to add some chapters to this work and others, it also saw a return of my depression and anxiety. As the fallout in my finances from the job loss has become a more and more pressing issue, my depression and anxiety have taken over.  As if that was not enough, my Lupus symptoms have begun to flare up again and have worsened. So in addition to the challenge of writing when I have few emotional and mental resources with which to write, I am now also contending with physical challenges as my lupus primarily attacks the joints of my fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders.

There are other issues in my personal life that are compounding all of the above and making writing challenging beyond the poetry I tend to write as an outlet for my emotions. As a result, I have withdrawn from much of my social media and do not see myself engaging until things settle down some. 

Thank you for reading and for commenting on how much you have enjoyed the story. Many of your comments have made my day and helped keep this story alive in my mind even as my work on it has stalled.

Please do not contact me or comment on the story asking for updates. I would also ask that you respect my privacy and not ask for me to divulge any more of what is going on in my life. I am not writing this post as a cry for sympathy, but merely an insight into why I have not updated recently as I have shared some of these details in the past both in the comments and on my Tumblr account. These are a boundaries that I absolutely have to have respected right now. If it is not respected, I will close my AO3 account and delete my works. 

 

Again thank you all for reading.

 

~Eadgyth

 

 

 


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